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DU will soon have their very own iPhone application, where students and faculty can access Blackboard, WebCentral, WebMail and other campus updates from their iPhone or iPod Touch.
Senior Brian Huh, who is developing the application, says he hopes to complete it in time for the 2010-11 school year.
“I think [an application] is a good way to include information, because I think a lot of students have [an iPhone or iPod Touch],” said Huh.
“I feel like it would position DU in a different manner as far as bringing the community together and different students together.”
Huh came up with the idea when he took a marketing class at Harvard this summer. He saw that other universities had created applications for their campuses.
“I always wanted to contribute to the DU community and thought this would be a way I could do it,” said Huh.
When the application is finished, students will be able to download it for free from the Apps Store.
Huh has received a PINS research grant, which has provided him with about $1,500 for his project.
However, according to Huh creating an application can cost as much as $100,000.
Huh is also working with the Academic Affairs Committee in the Undergraduate Student Senate to develop an application that has components students want to see.
“When you create something the next step is to get people to use it,” said sophomore Milan Chatterjee, chair of the Academic Affairs Committee. “We will ask for student input to improve [the application].”
Huh also hopes the committee will help him position his project to receive more funding as well.
Huh has also contacted the Department of Information Technology, which handles WebCentral, the Computer Science Department and the University Research Department.
So far they all have supported the initiative, but did not have the resources to provide for the project.
When creating the application, Huh is mostly concerned with what students would like to see in it.
“I don’t want to create a cookie-cutter application, but include what students and faculty want to see,” he said.
Anyone with input about the application can contact Huh at bhuh@du.edu.
