Millsaps senior Ryan Rauschokolb had an unusually attentive audience during a recent presentation for an advanced level software engineering class at Millsaps College.
Rauschokolb and his classmates spent the fall semester building an on-line database for Mississippi Children’s Home Services and recently presented their work to children’s home representatives for feedback.
The database will allow the children’s home to input demographic and census data from 13 programs across the state directly into a central database instead of submitting the information using separate spreadsheets. By simplifying the process, the database will streamline the process and reduce user errors.
“We were driven by the fact that it would be used by a real company,” said Rauschokolb, a senior computer science major from Gulfport.
MCHS is a nonprofit organization that provides behavioral health and social services to children and families in Mississippi.
After an initial interview with children’s home representatives, the students worked in teams to figure out what was needed and how to design, write and test each part of the project.
By taking a trial and error approach they quickly discovered what worked—and what didn’t.
“One of our major challenges was with the drop down menus getting populated correctly,” Rauscholkolb said. “I designed about 1,200 tables before finalizing the eight that ended up in the program.”
Don Schwartz, associate professor of computer science, says the service-learning project is a win-win situation for both the students and the nonprofit organization.
“Students take real world projects much more seriously and their level and quality of work far surpasses a made-up project,” Schwartz said. “Projects like this help students see more than a big pay check: they see they can write programs that help the community.”
The children’s home plans to begin using the new system with data collected during January 2009. Kevin Feisel, director of quality management for MCHS, said the user-friendly format of the new program will make his work more efficient by eliminating the need for error prone and time intensive spreadsheets.
“The amount of time that will be saved by this will be monumental,” Feisel said. “What really impressed me was how the students were able to accurately grasp our data needs and the complexity of our service system to produce such a useful product.”
The database includes options for different levels of access based on the type of user. For instance, a “guest” will be able to view data reports for statistical and census information, a “user” will be able to add data and an “administrator” will be able to edit data.
“I was more motivated working on this than a typical class project because I knew it was helping people out,” said Garret McKellar, a senior computer science major from Hattiesburg.
In recent years, many Millsaps classes have integrated service-learning components to benefit both the students and the surrounding community. Schwartz’s computer science classes have completed at least one service program a year for the last five years. The service-learning program at Millsaps is hosted by the Faith & Work Initiative, which provides incentives and support for faculty members who connect class assignments to needs in the local community.
