Above: Josh Costello at the Goggin.
“It’s going to be a big improvement, being able to schedule your season games in much less time, and having the site recognize a person’s Miami unique ID.”
Kevin Ackley, Goggin Ice Arena.
A student suggestion to MIS faculty member John (Skip) Benamati spurred a class project that will improve access to Miami’s Goggin Ice Arena.
Last year, when Dan Shugarts worked at the Goggin as a supervisor, the junior MIS major became aware that the arena’s web site didn’t function very well. Hockey and broomball teams had difficulty scheduling their ice time.
“He decided that we needed a redesigned web site that facilitated scheduling, and that developing one could be a great class project,” explained Kevin Ackley, the Goggin’s assistant director.
Shugarts broached the idea with Benamati, the teacher of an IT Project Management class he was going to take spring semester. Benamati, himself a broomball player, understood the problem. “Trying to schedule ice time online just took too long, and inevitably there would be conflicts with other teams wanting the same times,” he said.
He also liked the idea of assigning his class a real project that would have a positive impact on the university community. In setting up the project, he added a further real-world element.
“I was teaching two sections of the class, so when I divided up the students into teams, I intentionally made one team cross-sectional, so students would have to deal with conditions often found in the 24-hour workplace,” Benamati said.
Josh Costello was a member of that team.
“There was a steep learning curve in trying to figure out the most effective way to collaborate across sections,” he recalled. “Crunch time forced us into getting our act together and effectively communicating so that we could lay down code and roll out a functional system.”
Communication also required overcoming language barriers.
“In an MIS class, you might think that everyone is versed in a broad array of programming languages; however, that isn't quite the case, as we found out,” Costello said. “We had to pool our individual skills related to code writing.”
That code had to allow about 200 teams each season to schedule eight games each; not an easy task, according to Ackley. “It’s a very complex algorithm, which must recognize conflicts and manage them,” he explained.
The students were also charged with creating a site that was attractive and easy to use. And they were successful on all fronts, Ackley said. This summer, Costello is tweaking the final design, which the Goggin expects to launch before fall semester.
“It’s going to be a big improvement, being able to schedule your season games in much less time, and having the site recognize a person’s Miami unique ID,” he said.
Content maintained by External Relations
