Course Connect

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Inspiration

What inspired us to build Course Connect was the fragmented nature of academic collaboration at CUNY. As CUNY students, we noticed that course-specific communication and resource sharing was scattered across different platforms - some professors used email, others used Blackboard, and students often relied on group chats that new students couldn't access. We wanted to create a centralized platform where CUNY students could easily find their courses, connect with classmates, share materials, and collaborate in real-time, regardless of which CUNY college they attend.

What it does

Course Connect provides CUNY students with a comprehensive collaboration platform where they can join course-specific communities, share documents and resources, participate in real-time chat discussions, and connect with classmates across all 12 CUNY institutions. Students can search for courses across the entire CUNY system, join existing course communities, or create new ones for their classes. The platform features secure document sharing, real-time messaging, and user profiles that help students identify and connect with peers in their academic journey.## How we built it

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was implementing the real-time chat system reliably. We initially tried custom Supabase's real-time subscriptions implementations but ran into issues with message broadcasting and connection management. We solved this by migrating to SSE, which provided more stable message delivery. Another challenge was handling file uploads and storage securely while maintaining good performance. We also faced complexities in designing a database schema that could handle the diverse structure of CUNY's 12 different colleges while maintaining data consistency. Additionally, ensuring that only CUNY students could access the platform required implementing robust email domain validation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of creating a fully functional real-time collaboration platform that successfully handles multiple users simultaneously. The real-time chat system works seamlessly, allowing instant communication between course members. We successfully implemented secure file sharing with proper access controls, ensuring only course members can access shared materials. The platform's search functionality across all CUNY colleges is particularly robust, and we're proud of the clean, intuitive user interface that makes academic collaboration feel natural and engaging. Most importantly, we built something that addresses a real need in the CUNY community.## What we learned

What's next for Course Connect

We plan to expand Course Connect with several key features: integration with CUNY's official course catalog to automatically populate course information, advanced search and filtering options for finding study groups and tutoring opportunities, integration with calendar systems for assignment and exam reminders, and mobile app development for better accessibility. We also want to implement advanced collaboration features like shared whiteboards, video chat integration, and peer tutoring marketplaces. Additionally, we're considering adding analytics for professors to understand student engagement and implementing AI-powered study group matching based on academic performance and learning styles.