UNC Pembroke iPad/iPhone/iPod Application

The iPad/iPhone projects are continuing projects offered through CSC 4900 Advanced Software Project course. They started as a result of the school acquiring a number of iPod Touch devices to be used in a class project. It has evolved to include the iPad device.

Points of Contact
Dr. Charles W. Lillie
lilliec@uncp.edu
910-521-6415

iPhone Screen Shots
Home Screen	Home Screen 2	Universty Mall Webcam	About UNCP
Academic Calendar	UNCP Blackboard	UNCP Catalog	Credits
UNCP Departments	Faculity & Staff	UNCP News	UNCP Services

Information about the development process

The development process used for the iPhone app had two distinct phases. In both phases the Chief Programmer Team Approach was used. In the first semester we had a team of ten students. The overall team selected the project and identified the functions and features to include in the app. One student had excellent leadership skills as well and outstanding programming skills, so he was appointed Chief Software Engineer and did most of the design and programming. Two or three students had good programming skills so they designed and implemented smaller pieces that were integrated into the app by the Chief Software Engineer. Two students designed and populated the database used to hold faculty and course information. Other students designed and conducted tests as the project evolved. Two students documented the code and the Art Department was used to design graphics for the project.

In the second semester we had a much smaller team. Two students from the first semester provided continuity, including the Chief Software Engineer and one of the supporting Software Engineers. The team decided to redesign the app to move it from a table-based interface to an icon based interface. This gave it a much more polished and completed appearance. They also cleaned up some of the functions and features and added a few more. We continued with the same Chief Programmer Team Approach where the Chief Software Engineer did major redesign work and integrated the subcomponents. The final product presented a more polished app. The development team for the iPad app consisted of two students. The task was to scale the iPhone app to take advantage of the iPad realestate. No additional features or functions were added. The development process was a Chief Software Engineer being supported a Software Engineer.


Information about the Course

CSC 4900. Advanced Software Project

An assigned, group or individual, in-depth programming project includes problem definition, requirements analysis, design, implementation, documentation, and testing. Spring. Credit, 4 semester hours. PREREQ: CSC 2250 and CSC 2850.

Description of what the apps do

The UNCP iPad and iPhone apps are informational tools allowing one to discover more about the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The iPad app is essentially the same as the iPhone app reformatted to take advantage of the iPad real estate. Through the apps the user can view the latest news, search the campus map, look up course information, view the Bravecam, search the campus directories, and more from your iPad or iPhone. The apps include the following features:

• News provides links to two news features at UNCP.
  • The University Newswire is the official source of up-to-date news about UNCP and the people who make it great.
  The user is sent to the UNCP website for University Newswire that contains news stories about activities at and around the university. An internet connections is required to get to the web site.
  
  • The Pine Needle is the student newspaper of UNCP. This application links to the RSS feed from the university website and presents the articles listed through the RSS feed. An internet connection is needed to access the RSS feed.
• Departments app provides a list of all the departments at the university and features information about each department. That information includes a description of the department, a list of degrees offered by the department, the faculty and staff that are in each department, a list of courses offered by the department, and contact information for each department. This information is resident in the application.
  
• Calendar provides academic and exam schedules for the next two semesters. This information is resident in the application.
  
• Map brings up a static map of the campus. From this map the user can link to Google Maps showing the campus. An internet connection is required to access Google Maps.
  
• About UNCP provides information about the university, including a welcoming message from the chancellor, quick facts about the university, 2011 statistics about the student population, brief history of the university, traditions at the university, the community around the campus, landmarks and points of interest, the board of governors, the university mission statement, and a list of current and former chancellors.
  
• Bravecam provides two live webcam shots of the campus, one showing the university mall and one showing the water feature.
  
• Courses provides a list of all courses offered at the university listed by department.
  
• Faculty and Staff is a searchable list of all faculty and staff at the university with information about each, including name, office, telephone number, and email address.
  
• Services is a searchable list of services offered on campus. The list is searchable via keywords.
  
• Student Directory takes the user to the university website that has a listing of all students. The listing is searchable. An internet connection is required to access this feature.
  
• Credits is a list of all the students that worked on the iPhone/iPad apps and the function each performed.

Future enhancements

• Redesign both iPad and iPhone apps to be data driven, that is, move as much information to the database.
• Redeisgn the iPad to incorporate split views