Database and Web Systems - Service to the World

My computer science journey has allowed me to create programs that benefit Hendrix College in multiple ways. In the first case, I created the framework for the Hendrix Today app, which streamlines the process in which important announcements are delivered to students. The second one, my recent project for Databases and Web Systems, is designed to make it easier for music majors to keep track of their recital attendances to achieve their degree. While it is easy to see these opportunities as a mere project for a grade in a class, it is way more exciting to view these projects as away of helping my fellow students.

Working with a Community Partner

One of the most fundamental parts of computer science, both in college and in the workforce, is working with a client to create something suitable to their needs. In the case of Hendrix Today, there were many conditions necessary to the creation of a satisfactory product. For one, the app needed to have a user interface that was easy to understand and interact with. Additionally, the app needed to stay simple. We don’t want to overwhelm users with miscellaneous tools that they’ll never end up using.

Through my experience with that project and also understanding what students would want in an app, I was more than prepared to approach the problem of creating a website for music students to submit their attendances. What was most important was understanding the wants of the target audience and being a student, I acknowledge the importance of following the same guidelines as before. Our only issue limiting us in making an app catering to music students was our lack of experience in creating websites. Students would be much more likely to submit an attendance on their phone as they are more convenient and they can easily take a picture of the event’s program using their phone for the submission. However, our website is very poorly optimized for a mobile layout and would require an overahul of how its structures are built.

Overall, I believe I was very well prepared to take on this expereince helping the Hendrix community, however, we missed a few opportunities to make the website even better for the music students.

Invoking Change Within the Music Department

The most important part of this website is that it will provide peace-of-mind for the administrators of the music department. The current system they have in place involves the use of students submitting several Google Forms. While this method is the most convenient now due to its easy setup, the admins find it difficult to have to count out a students’ individual forms and then separate them out by type to make sure they aren’t attending too many off-campus events. By having a website that sorts these attendance submissions automatically, it removes the length of time it requires for admins to count each student’s progress. Additionally, students now have an easier way of keeping track of their own progress being able to log-in to their account and check for themselves, eliminating the guesswork of trying to remember every submission they have, or having to ask an administrator.

My Beliefs and Values

An important section of Database and Web Systems this year was the importance of data masking. This involves the generalization of certain categories in a database when displaying it publicly. The reason I mention this is because the way that the website is currently set up, anyone can easily view a student’s attendance information by searching for their ID number. This shortcoming is another area which should certainly be improved in the future. We had plans to solve this by adding a log-in feature so that users can only access information related to them, ut time constraints limited the ability to implement this.

A website being in this condition would almost certainly result in a massive security risk for all users whose information appears on the site, which is why it is important that the project will be continued in the future by Disco Tray studios. Had this not been the case, we would have certainly put much more effort into implementing ways of protecting student information.

Contributing to my Community

Projects like the Music Attendance site and Hendrix Today have definitely improved my desire to help out in my local community, especially when I can provide something beneficial to those around me. By working on these projects, I have coded programs that help to improve information flow between members of Hendrix. In the case of Hendrix Today, students and professors can receive information in a more streamlined manner. With the Music Attendance site, students and professors can track an important part of their degree progress more conveniently. In the future, I hope that there are many more projects in which I can work directly within my community.