MBI 2014 - Entry

The University of Liverpool’s ‘PC Finder’ mobile web app was built by our in-house development team, in response to feedback from students that it could be difficult to find an available PC on campus at peak times – particularly during exams. By contrast, our stats showed that we rarely came close to maximum occupancy of our PC centres, prompting us to do further research. This revealed that students were uncomfortable using computers outside of the library or their own department, as they were unsure of opening hours, room availability, and whether they were even allowed access to buildings other than their own. The solution was to build an app that combined live data on PC availability with information on building opening hours, room bookings, software and hardware availability, and GPS co-ordinates from mobile handsets - to give students up to the minute information on where the nearest available PC is, and how to get there. Since the release of the app in January 2014 positive feedback from staff and students alike has been overwhelming, with further development planned for summer 2014. Although the web app is an intranet tool, primarily for University of Liverpool students, it’s publicly viewable at http://pcseats.liv.ac.uk so try it now…