Mike2k111
Member
Registered: 7th Oct 03
Location: N.Wales
User status: Offline
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Hey guys, got a favour to ask if you get a spare minute. Im in the middle of one of my University projects and need to start gathering some user feedback from it.
Basically, the project is still in its development stage so dont expect anything perfect! Its aimed at Sixth Form/College leavers and will assist them in selecting a short list of potential Universities matching their preferences. Where this project differs from exixing applications is that University results are returned on a percentage success match basis, rather than discrete yes or no values. Its made using PHP, MySQL and a few other bits of different languages.
Would be great to get some peoples views if you get a chance.
Cheers, Mike 
www.whichuniversityfyp.co.uk
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Skylined
Member
Registered: 27th Sep 05
Location: Sideways, Surrey
User status: Offline
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Looks good
I put in my details and it found the Uni i'm at so seems to work 
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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What degree you doing?
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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You only got about 12 universities in the system so far or something?
Put in my course and only got 12 universities back even with all on 'not important' ?
It says you're doing this for your Computer Science Final year project, I'm shocked that this is substaintial enough for it? - I.T. Degree maybe, but not CS.
Then again I may just be biased as my project is pretty mentally challenging lol, my tutor seems to be impressed so far, so it's all good
Er, feedback on the site.
Functionality on what it does seems good apart from it only gave me a limited supply of universities, though I'd be interested to know how it'd be affected if say someone put 'en suite' or parking as important, and whether it'd suggest a crap university to them, despite the course they want being great at that uni just because it ranks higher for parking and ensuite 
Therefore i guess each one has to be relatively ranked... plus if I'm looking for a uni that's great for computer science, it may not be the same as a university that's great for say 'English'. If it's solely just taking the overall university ranking it may not reflect this... As the university may be ranked excellent due to it's fantastic English or Business or whatever schools, but lack Computer Science facilities... but due to the algorithm just looking at rankings of the whole university, suggest I take computer science there.
Next, what about ucas points? Most kids at university want to get the best university course they can, but it's dependant on what they can literally do thanks to ucas points.
I had a stupid amount 400 ish or something, but I know my course differed from being 340 or 360 ucas points at some uni's, to 280 at others.
If someone only had 280 ucas points it could give you a selection and filter relative to their selection of ucas points (or ignore if no amount was entered).
Next, erm, flash intro's are great for first time you view a site, but from a usability point of view annoying to returning people. perhaps just have the flash video in a box on the main page, so people can watch it and get the jist, but it's not limiting their use or making them click to enter a site.
Finally, what about looking at new web technologies for the site? Silverlight is pretty hot at the moment, giving windows presentation foundation style applications on the web.
[Edited on 23-02-2008 by Paul_J]
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Mike2k111
Member
Registered: 7th Oct 03
Location: N.Wales
User status: Offline
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Thanks for the feedback so far. There are only 12 Universities as a trial run so far as alot of the bugs and HCI issues need to be ironed out before populating the database up to a sufficient standard.
The fact that it returns all 12 universities is correct (providing the areas of the country/league positions have been entered match). The main enphasis of the project is the case based reasoning and fuzzy logic approach which calculate the actual percentage match of the University to the requirements entered.
The main fetaure was that universities are not discounted due to them not fulfilling certain requirements but that they appear lower in the returned results set. For example, someone choosing ensuite rooms. If a top university did not offer the facility even though they featured highly in other areas then the percentage match returned would not be effected substantially.
Due to the ammount of data that would be required to implement searches for every course at every university the application is centered around the university as a whole.
[Edited on 23-02-2008 by Mike2k111]
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Eddie.2k
Member
Registered: 4th Dec 06
User status: Offline
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Be good to have the course option in alphabetical order just to make it that little be easier to read
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