UMichConnect: Centralized Campus Resource App
Designed to unify and streamline the digital experience for University of Michigan students
About the Project:
UMich students need a digital hub for their everyday campus life, from class schedules to bus tracking and everything in between. Currently, all of the University of Michigan's websites and mobile apps are disjointed and there is a lack of intuitiveness when navigating school sites such as Wolverine Access, especially for new and prospective students. These difficulties can impact productivity and campus cohesion for students, specifically in digital spaces.
Proposed Solution
With UMichConnect, the MBus, MCard, course schedule, and many other digital interfaces are put together in a collective in one mobile-first platform.
UMichConnect features:
- Home Dashboard (clean layout and customizable navigation bar)
- Bus Tracker (real-time map and search functionality)
- Digital Wallet (tap-to-access MCard and payment systems)
Site Map/User Flow
Data Handling and Security Approach
UMichConnect is designed to streamline access to University of Michigan resources by leveraging existing APIs (e.g., MyClassSchedule, MyGrades) using only a user’s UMID and uniqname. Since most data already resides in university databases, we only store minimal user information; just enough to retrieve schedules, grades, and real-time data (like bus locations via web scraping tools such as BeautifulSoup). To ensure security, we use parameterized SQL queries to safeguard against injection attacks and protect sensitive user data. This minimal storage model and secure querying demonstrate our commitment to both user privacy and system efficiency.
When a user logs on, we will be able to use a simple SQL query to collect the necessary information.
SELECT uniq FROM users WHERE id = “12345678”
Once we have pulled the Uniqname from our database, we can then post a request to the pre-exisitng APIs to pull the data to display.
Uses Python Requests library to submit a request to the API, then parse the returned data.
Uniqname Request
In this example code, the sqlite3 package from Python is utilized to establish a connection with the user database. Then, a parameterized query is used to search for the users uniqname. If there is a uniqname that matches the UMID, this function will return the uniqname, which can then use used in the next step of data retrieval. If the UMID does not match a uniqname in the database, it returns an error. This demonstrates how we will be able to use our user database to pull the necessary data to make API requests.
Schedule Request
In this example code, we use the uniqname that was pulled from our user database to make a request to the MyClassSchedule API that is managed by the university. If the request is successful, we use the Python requests library to get the data and then load that data into a JSON object. Then, we parse the data and display the schedule within our app. If the request is not successful (for example, if the uniqname request returns none) then the corresponding error code will be displayed.
Conclusion & Iterations
In conclusion, this proposed application represents a solution that will transform the University of Michigan community by unifying access to essential campus resources. The current fragmented landscape creates unnecessary frustration for students. We aim to alleviate this burden and provide students with a seamless, personalized experience. This comprehensive solution will increase productivity, resource utilization, and foster a stronger sense of community. Furthermore, the mobile-optimized design will ensure convenient access, improving the daily lives of students.
Ultimately, this centralized digital hub represents a strategic investment in the university's most valuable asset: its students. By delivering a cutting-edge, user-centric experience that simplifies daily tasks and strengthens community ties, we aspire to contribute to the overall success of this vibrant demographic.
For future iterations of UMichConnect, we take into consideration that technology is ever-evolving and that the university will be coming out with more applications and websites. We would like to add those to our app to continue fostering a centralized and intuitive user experience for students. Additionally, performing frequent usability evaluations with our app will help improve the interface with real data to what students need.