Suggestions for a Web application for a group project.

Question

I am doing 2nd year computer science and we have a software engineering group project. There are 5 people in the group and we would like to build a web application in php. Please suggest some ideas for me

Answer 1

How about a content management system?

This allows you to show off every part of your web development skill and it shouldn't be hard to do with a 5 person team. CMSs often include file uploads, file management and on-line text editors (something like TinyMCE).

They're actually quite fun to develop and when the system is completed it has a great "wow" factor. Especially when you show people how you can edit the contents of your website on-line.

Answer 2

Idea: Develop a "group project contribution tracking/reporting" application. I suggest you beta test it on a handful of users - maybe five (5) or so.

Could include factors such as: Lines of Code Written, Time QA Testing, # of Use Case Index Cards produced, etc.

Oh, if you want to go completely subjective - work in a reputation system.

---

I am being half-ironic, but who knows, maybe there's something there.

In all seriousness - all the best on the project.

Answer 3

You guys could create something along the lines of Buxfer or Mint or Quicken Online.

I am working on one such project for the desktop myself (hobby).

All you have to do is parse OFX statements, store them in a database.

Allow user to tag the transactions and set budgets.

Allow for more than one bank/credit card accounts.

Display pretty reports with pie charts which help in meaningfully visualizing data.

Do some basic analysis on the numbers ("On an average, you spend $500 every 6 months on electronics you do not need").

Once the database design is finalized, you can work in parallel on lot of these features.

Answer 4

My second year project was actually suggested by the university, since it filled a need they had.

We created a photo directory of our university's student body and faculty.

Then we also linked it to the course lists and faculty information.

Finally, we created user authentication for users and accounts.

The end functionality allowed a student to log in, edit their own information (which had to be approved by a staff member), and look through the directory with limited access to information. Ie, they had access to portraits portrait, residence extensions, and names. They could also choose to not be visible to other students.

Faculty could log in and, in addition to the above, view galleries of the students within their classes. This allowed them to print out a booklet so they could begin to associate names with faces in their classes.

It was written in Java Enterprise Edition... was a bit of a beast. If I were to re-implement, I would rewrite it in PHP5. And if it wasn't for course credit, I would build it using Drupal..

Answer 5

Why not talk to to professors/instructors in other disciplines about things that they might need.

For my project we did just that and created a simple system to keep track of scheduling for lab attendants in the Art Departments photo lab. It was all PHP3 :)

Answer 6

Have a look a Paul Graham's list of "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund" - lots more ideas and the CMS has been done to death.

http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

The list in short:

1. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom.
2. Simplified browsing
3. New news
4. Outsourced IT
5. Enterprise software 2.0
6. More variants of CRM
7. Something your company needs that doesn't exist
8. Dating
9. Photo/video sharing services
10. Auctions
11. Web Office apps
12. Fix advertising
13. Online learning
14. Tools for measurement
15. Off the shelf security
16. A form of search that depends on design
17. New payment methods (tricky)
18. The WebOS (si tienes 'webos', sorry Spanish joke)
19. Application and/or data hosting
20. Shopping guides
21. Finance software for individuals and small businesses
22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid
23. More open alternatives to Wikipedia
24. A buffer against bad customer service
25. ACraigslist competitor
26. Better video chat
27. Hardware/software hybrids
28. Fixing email overload
29. Easy site builders for specific markets
30. Startups for startups

Answer 7

What Classes Should I Schedule Next Semester?

Given a course schedule and a student profile, what classes should a student register for during the next semester? Take into account major, course prerequisites, and personal restrictions such as blocking out time spent at jobs or practice.

This will require a database and some interesting SQL queries. Web pages for completing the student profile. Some kind of report for the suggested schedule. If you store the profile then you will also need authentication. You can work somewhat independently on different areas of the application.

Let us know what you decide to do and what it is like being dependent on other programmers for part of your grade. Good luck!