Inspiration
As the last year has shifted to primarily online with classes also being online, it has become increasingly harder to connect with peers in classes. This disconnection has made it challenging for students to form study groups in tougher classes or get the help they need when they are struggling with course material. Knowing that the situation with online classes will most likely continue for the next semester and possibly longer, we believed that a website that promotes student connectivity and productivity would be beneficial. In this sense, students will be able to coordinate study groups on campus or online, even as we continue in our online education, through Study Meet Up, the website we have created.
What it does
On the site, students are able to filter through different schools/colleges at UT Austin to find other students in their major or class that are working on similar topics. Through these pages, students are also able to add their own names to this list with a form so that others can reach out to them if they’re studying similar topics. On a separate page, students are able to post Zoom links to study group meetings to invite others to join, creating online study groups.
How we built it
Using HTML and CSS, we designed and created our webpage with multiple tabs, allowing users to find their college in a drop-down menu and navigate through the other pages of the website. We utilized javascript to connect study form submissions to a spreadsheet and embedded each of the spreadsheets into the website below each form. This way, form submissions can be viewed by everyone using the website, making it easier for students to connect with other people with similar studying interests.
Challenges we ran into
One challenge we ran into was developing the postings page using PHP. None of us had any experience using PHP, so although we were able to create the form inputs for the postings page, we ran into some difficulties in validating and returning the form inputs using PHP.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
One of our biggest accomplishments was creating the dropdown menu and banner. Connecting our HTML file to a CSS design file provided our entire webpage with a more polished look than how the pages looked when we first started creating our webpage. The process of creating a dropdown menu also required the interconnected usage of two different coding languages that no one in our team had much experience in, so completing the dropdown menu design was a large feat and accomplishment for our team.
What we learned
Our whole team was learning a lot of HTML, CSS, and javascript as we went along since we didn’t have very much prior experience in these languages. We learned how to create a dropdown menu and banner for the home page, and how to extend that menu so that it was accessible on every page. We also learned how to create forms and return their outputs onto the page, which we used for all the school pages. Finally, we learned how to create a larger web development project, including ensuring our CSS style sheets were unified, and navigating the different pages we needed to create for each school.
What's next for Study Meet Up
In the future, our aim is to expand Study Meet Up’s form and postings features. The form will have a greater range of questions, so students will be able to form more effective study groups with other students that have the same interests and study habits. We also hope to develop a feature that will provide email notifications to students when a person taking the same class or interested in similar topics also signs up on the form, so students can easily and efficiently form new study groups. For the postings page, we hope to get the form validation working with PHP so that students are able to post their Zoom links. Once we have a working postings form, the next step for this page would be adding a filter through class/major, so that students can search for study group meetings that pertain specifically to them rather than through one long list.
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