TiTaC
TiTaC – Entertaining and easy scheduling
Three Business Informatics students of the University of Duisburg-Essen were facing the challenge to create the schedule for their first semester. As master students they already had an academic degree, but is that really necessary for the creation of a schedule?
Research of causes
Students need different information for the creation of their schedule. This information is detectable at different webpages of the university and of different chairs. They need the correct handbook of modules to determine what kind of lectures are appropriated for them. The handbook provides general information and information about the organisation of the event. After the students decided on what kind of lectures are suitable for them, the need to look up the dates and locations of the events at the course catalogue. They might find out that some events take place at the same time. Moreover, some information is not reliable. The students have to look for differences of the actual event dates and locations at the webpage of chair.
Approach of a solution
In contrast to the usual method for the creation of a schedule that is difficult and lengthy, “TiTaC” supports the user to create this task more interesting and entertaining. This contrast was supposed to highlight the benefits and the advantages of the program which was important for the acceptance and the spread of the program. Moreover, the goal of the application was the playful and intuitive handling of schedule activities and the explorative operating of the user. This concept is based on the field of “Edutainment” (education + entertainment). The use of the program Macromedia Director was relevant for the implementation of our application. Due to this program we could create a prototype for the visualization of our application.
Project members
- Sandro Georgi
- Sabine Pniewski
- Widura Schwittek