Students Create Course Management Site

Kien Hoang ’15 (L-R), Justin Chando ’13, John Frazier ’15, Tim Costa ’15, Dorde Rakic ’15, and Ryan Warrier ’14

During spring semester, six professors are testing a new course-management system called AcademicConnect, created by Lafayette students.

John Frazier ’15 and Ryan Warrier ’14 began working on the project two years ago. Their idea was to create a system that combined course management with social networking. They brought four other students onto the team—Justin Chando ’13, economics major; Dorde Rakic ’15, mathematics major; Tim Costa ’15, computer science major; and Kien Hoang ’15, computer science major.

Warrier, originally a biology major, taught himself web development and is now a computer science and mathematics major. Frazier, a math and economics major, researched the business and marketing side.

By the end of 2011, the workload had grown massively so they took some time off from Lafayette to work on the project full time, reports Julia Ben-Asher ’14 in the Dec. 6, 2012, The Lafayette.

The AcademicConnect beta site includes a news feed of class activity, a document uploading tool for adding exams and assignments, and a text editor with math tools designed so that students can collaborate on problems.

The site also has tools for messaging, drawing on PDFs with a computer mouse, document sharing and editing, organizing events and assignments, and managing grades.