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Roommates

Roommates. Carlos Csiszer Brooke Gallagher Daniel Katz Madeline McCann Trinity Sheppard Cristian Taveras. The Client. Office of Residence Life Responsible for housing Stevens Students

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Roommates

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  1. Roommates Carlos Csiszer Brooke Gallagher Daniel Katz Madeline McCann Trinity Sheppard Cristian Taveras

  2. The Client • Office of Residence Life • Responsible for housing Stevens Students • "The Mission of the Office of Residence Life is to provide a safe supportive, and dynamic living and dining environment for students..." • Represented by Kurtis Watkins • Will be the main Administrator

  3. The Problem • Needs a new website to help students find roommates • The current system is inefficient in finding compatible roommates • Too many issues between poorly chosen roommates • Students have little to no control over selecting a random roommate • Current system only consists of 11 generic questions

  4. The Solution • Created a better website for Stevens Student to find compatible roommates • This included: • A more extensive and detailed questionnaire • Student profiles • And a place for students to communicate with possible roommates

  5. How it Works • Student profile • Questionnaire • Matches • Connect

  6. Student Profile • Students write a little about themselves • short blurb, Twitter style • Students need to be aware that information put in this blurb could be used to guess safety question answers for other sites. • Before they are able to start looking for matches, students must answer a short questionnaire

  7. Questionnaire • Students answer questions regarding their preferences in areas such as sports, extra-curricular activities, allergies, and sleep schedule • Gives our system the data it needs to find compatible roommates • Attempts to eliminate personality differences which could cause conflicts between roommates • Once the data is obtained, the system uses it to find matches

  8. Matches • Our system crunches the numbers and finds compatible roommates • Users see a compatibility percentage • Top matches are shown first • Using the matches, students are able to view their most compatible matches' profiles

  9. Connect • Students can view their matches' profiles and send them a message • Our system is a "conversation starter" • The system for actually assigning roommates is different from our system • This system relies upon students meeting people in classes, then applying to be roommates • It does not provide any way of knowing whether an unknown person will be a good roommate • Our system allows students to email each other • Once they decide they will be good roommates, they can use the existing system to sign up for a room

  10. How We Did it • Focus group • The questions • The algorithm

  11. Focus Group • Hosted an open focus group for all undergraduates • Feedback from students who went through the process • Asked them what matters the most • Also asked what they didn't like about the current process

  12. The Questions • Based on student feedback we learned that certain questions should have more weight in the matching algorithm than others • Totally customizable by the administrator of the system

  13. Speaking of the Administrator • More than one person can be assigned as the administrator of the system • The administrator can... • Create, edit, and delete questions • Post messages to students • Customize the home page • Enable/disable a student's account

  14. Technical Details • Technology • Architecture • Security

  15. Technology • HTML5 • CSS3 • JavaScript • PHP • MySQL • Third-party frameworks and libraries • Bootstrap • jQuery • Knockout

  16. Architecture

  17. Security • Goal: to create a better system for Stevens students to find compatible roommates while ensuring a safe and secure experience • Main security concerns: • Protecting the students' information • Maintaining as much privacy as possible for each Stevens student • Granting access only to valid users

  18. Security (cont.) Addressing these concerns • Our project's server has been upgraded to PHP version 5.3.3, eliminating vulnerabilities of previous versions • Only the administrator (our client) can make changes to the system • Our project has been integrated with the Pipeline system (myStevens)

  19. Security (cont.) Pipeline (myStevens) Security • The security of the Pipeline system is maintained by the IT department • Stevens assures that information is encrypted when collected or transferred • Appropriate physical and digital procedures are implemented and maintained • Information that could lead to personal identification is never shared

  20. Roadblocks • Issues IT • Solved relatively quickly but took time away from development • Outdated PHP version caused problems • Resulted in us having to rewrite lots of code • Wish we had our own virtual machine with absolute control over it

  21. Future work • Integration with Stevens' email system • No need to go outside of website to connect with other students

  22. Questions Any questions?

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