Student Connect
A campus-wide network to connect the online student community.
By Kathryn A. Patterson
The Journey
The current mental health crisis arising among college students during a global pandemic is a huge motivator for developing an easier and possibly more efficient way to provide students with support and connection while they face new challenges. This has informed my thinking and approach in order to utilize a chat support platform amongst students.
Unsurprisingly, social media discussion forums are becoming the new norm. Yet there are various advantages and disadvantages to transitioning one of the most traditional practices, community support groups, to an online platform.
Follow along with the journey as Student Connect works to solve on-campus problems for students; through tech. Here you’ll witness the trade-offs, pluses, and minuses surrounding the new-age transition to online student portals.
Our ‘WHY’
Student Connect is unique due to its focus on the college student body- meeting a growing need for communal support in a university environment and beyond . The idea is to help the clients (college students and young adults) to get through campus-wide challenges with online counseling support services. This service will be targeting students at the following all of the following: public institutions, private institutions, research institutions, community colleges, and technical colleges. This includes undergraduates and graduate students, international, adult learners, online learners, and non-traditional student populations.
After researching all specific solutions, I have concluded that there’s a market gap for anonymous student group chats to help connect and bring the student body together. This product will fill this market need by providing an application that allows for student groups to form virtually, because many students are facing challenges with finding a support community.
This gap exists because of students facing challenges in the university community, one that neither the student body nor the university counseling administration is suited to address.
Road Blocks
Here are a few of the challenges pertaining to an online student discussion forum:
The biggest challenge I faced in my journey has not been creating a Website or an App platform but the trial arose while trying to create a function that allowed different users to create discussions. I knew I could create a website and an app that allowed users to log in and register with Firebase from Cloud Firestore, but I also needed to be able to add example users who could use an activity or members discussion channel to show how the social media app would help students connect virtually.
I started out researching, developing, and studying how to bring together a community through a Membership Site using shared-user technology. The technical design area that began implementing for StudentConnect was a WordPress website with plugin tools that developed an innovative solution to a digital need for specific clients. For the website I originally used a WordPress Classic Editor Theme: BuddyPress.
A New Path
The WordPress technology left out the ability to build a versatile student support network with a members tab where students were able to share their personal stories, testimonies of challenges they’re facing, and ask for counsel and support. Because of this road block, I decided to transcend the WordPress User Plugin from administrative members and create an entirely new website and app.
I began a new chatroom that could be used by students on a two page website. The first page was dedicated to listing discussion topics/categories, and the second showed all comments for that topic/category and would allow users to make comments too. I then employed firebase software for persisting data with there firestore cloud database, and hardcoded in some user data to show comments/topics made by specific users. I leveraged what I learned in my coding classes to create html, css, and vue.js files for the frontend client and then firebase to host the client database.
By honing my research, development, and study to develop a shared-user technology I hope to be able to bring together a community of student in a time of need. This technology will provide a student support network with a members tab where students are able to share their personal stories, testimonies of challenges they’re facing, and ask for counsel and support through a website and app.
Feature Descriptions + List: Purpose and value of each feature for the user audience
- Home
- User Profiles
- User Blog
- Discussion Forums
- Contact
- Forms
- Activity
- Calendar
- Members
- Resources
- Notifications
- Settings
Research
After researching all specific solutions, I have concluded that there’s a market gap for anonymous student group chats to help connect and bring the student body together during a pandemic. We know we need an application that allows for student groups to form, because many students are facing challenges with finding community during this time.
Where the gap exists and why it needs to be filled:
This gap exists because navigating a pandemic is a very new challenge for the university community, one that neither the student body nor the university counseling administration was prepared for.
I’ve researched potential competitors in the market for inspirational purposes such as the Problem Forum, YikYak, and Whisper where I lay out their functionalities and limitations when it comes to providing a network of support, particularly for a college student audience.
- Problem Forum — “If you have a personal issue that you wish to discuss anonymously, this online forum and live chat room is here for you 24/7. Submit your problem in our confidential forum or head over there now to view and respond to existing threads. However, the chatroom may be unsuitable if you have a lot of background information you need to share, as opposed to letting conversations unfold naturally in the forum. You will need to sign up before you can add content to the forum, but it’s free and there’s the option to receive email alerts whenever people interact with your posts. Your personal safety is important to us and you can discover what we’re doing to protect you and your information in our privacy policy.”
- Yik Yak — “Yik Yak is a microblogging app that allows people to post messages (yaks) without user names; the mobile app aggregates and presents the posts of users within a 1.5 mile radius as a streaming data feed. Users can reply to messages anonymously and vote posts and replies up or down.”
- Whisper — “Whisper also supports groups, so you can create groups for your university, and have a more Yik Yak like experience. To keep the content at a user moderated level, the app uses ratings for users, so users can decide whether or not to chat with an anonymous person, based on the rating other people have given to them. The app does try it’s best to deal with harassment and abuse, and you can always block users if need be. Whisper does have features like making anonymous posts, and commenting on other people’s postings. The app divides Whispers (that’s what the posts on Whisper are called) into different categories by popularity, location, etc. There is also a search tab, so you can search for Whispers containing specific phrases, and connect with like-minded people.”
What exists in the market and how it stands out against competitors:
The “Problem Forum” is probably the closest to Student Connect in terms of functionality and features. The product technology for SC will be similar to this product because the website will also offer an interface that enables anonymous posting and commenting features 24/7. Student Connect will also provide a confidential online forum with a live chat room that allows visitors to run their issues through a community informally. It will also be a free membership and will provide a way for all users to respond to existing threads.
What else exists in this market and how they overlap with each other:
Let’s return to the problem now that I’ve introduced the solution. Below I’ll compare the solution to other competitors and describe how it is a more efficient solution. First and foremost, these tools were created for strangers to connect anonymously, which is a feature that I like as a choice rather than the only option. Meanwhile, Student Connect is directed at communicating with a specific target audience; being the student body customized and limited to the user communities unique university and location.
Additionally, these tools don’t allow students to communicate on a personal level. In StudentConnect, however, the student has the choice to decide whether they are anonymous or their profile is available to the public with customized profile settings and instant messages. This chat room allows for students to connect with the student body LIVE, which the other support platforms do not provide. This tool promotes student involvement on a more personal level in a time where it is challenging for students to find community and support. This website also has the potential to allow students to receive direct advice from specific members of university academic and counseling services. I plan to eliminate overlap and fill any gaps that I identify aren’t currently covered.
Advantages
❏ Emphasizes student satisfaction, feedback loop, virtual community, and seamless communication
❏ Communication, simplicity, feedback, respect (traditional agile values)
❏ Students can have a strong support network as they navigate their academic journey
❏ Students can use the database to connect with a wider student community
❏ Provides resources and materials for students to engage with
❏ App allows for students to login and connect with private or public users
Challenges
❏ Difficult to conduct community events that are not face-to-face
❏ Limited number of faculty and staff that can assist students virtually
❏ Students want their struggles to remain anonymous and private
❏ The categories won’t fit every student’s challenges and needs
We all dread going to the counseling office, walking down public halls bustling with unfamiliar faces, and then going through a series of uncomfortable tests. But now young adults, especially students, are finding themselves more virtually connected than ever before. What if we could move a support community fully online? The online student database will provide streamlined communication between the student and their community.
Students could drive their own online community to stay connected on a social network and replace the frequent anxieties of school counseling appointments a thing of the past. In a post-pandemic world, students are facing yet another giant problem in the mental health space: access to community. Luckily, StudentConnect is shifting in the right direction!
