Senior Capstone creating a Student Wellness Application for the Student Wellness Center at CCSU.
Background InformationBackground:
Wellness Education is tasked with helping students maintain their health and well-being while attending the university.
We provide information to students on various platforms from face to face to social media.
We give students accurate statistical information on the use of alcohol and other drugs (usually the number using substances is overly inflated).
Our hope is to expand our efforts to include a Wellness App: as an individual struggles in a particular factor of their lives,
the app provides information in greater and greater depth to help.
We use SAMHSA’s (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrations) 8 factors of Wellness
(social, environmental, spiritual, emotional, occupational, physical, and financial).
Project DescriptionProject:
We would like the creation of a Wellness App that is web-based.
Students will log into the app using their names and a password.
(At present, I am not sure what other information will be requested of students other than on/off campus.)
Students will identify whether they live on or off campus, so we know where to provide information to meet their needs
(student center, residence halls, parking lots, etc.). The students would be presented with a Wellness Wheel with 8 sections,
similar to pie pieces. The student would be able to scroll over each of the pieces to find out the definition of the section and
examples of being well (top 3rd), being neutral (middle third) or being unwell (low 3rd - closest to center) in each of the sections.
Students will be asked to mark each segment with how they perceive themselves to be doing in that section.
When all 8 sections are marked, the individual will be able to scroll over the section and be given information based on their
self-evaluation. If doing well financially, there would be praise for doing better than most people in having enough money to pay their
bills. If not doing well financially, at first the student will be introduced to budgeting and be given information on how to get a job on
CS@CCSU Software Engineering Studio Project Proposalhttp://www.ccsu.edu/cscampus if they choose to do so.
The student will be able to return to the wheel throughout their career at CCSU and be given information on their wheel.
The changes could be tracked by the student to see changes in life over time - a journal of wellness if you will.
The general information across students would be aggregated and provided to Wellness Education for us to use in programming.
The aggregate would be generated at the end of each month for those using the wheel that month.
The aggregate would be based on the last entry by each individual with each factor’s ratings being combined with the ratings on that factor
of all other students who respondedthat month. The data would be displayed in a report of the number of students and the percentage of the
totals based on on-campus, off-campus and total. If we find 40% of students are struggling with the environment,
we can do tabling about coping with a room that is too hold/cold, etc. during that next month. Our hope is to deliver information student’s need the most.
Project ScopeScope:
The use of the 8 factors of wellness is essential to the project.
This project needs to educate students to the importance of self-assessment of these 8 factors to improve their lives.
Similar to exercising providing long term benefit, awareness of the 8 factors can benefit an individual by identifying life changes that
can improve life. The self-assessment can provide a clearer picture for the student of strengths and weaknesses as wellas resources on
campus to help. If a person is given the opportunity to enhance skills associated with each domain, then the students will
fare better in life. Having the program on the CCSU website will provide easy access and show the university supports the app.
We will need the initial wheel and see that pop-ups function well. The next step is the three sections of each slice of the pie
(well, neutral, not well). Then having the information associated with each area coming up in succession from the first to the last.
Finally, having the aggregate being able to be seen by Wellness staff and thestudent being able to track progress over time.
Project ChallengesChallenges:
I am not certain. I know it will be a challenge to technically stack the responses from Wellness staff.
Another challenge is the student tracking progress over time for the student.
Finally, having an aggregate for Wellness staff for programming purposes. A challenge for us in Wellness is to have information that
is in depth, but not so much the students get lost in trying to understand it.
We can use focus groups for the information from Wellness education to work on a best fit for the program.Constraints & Assumptions
Constraints and Assumptions: We need to be able to use the app through the CCSU website.
The wheel is essential to provide a quick, accessible way of self-evaluation on the 8 factors.
We need to have the capacity for 120 responses (8 factors X 3 levels [well, neutral, not well] X 5 levels of CS@CCSU Software Engineering
Studio Project Proposalhttp://www.ccsu.edu/cs responses to allow for depth of information).
Wellness Education will provide the 120 responses and change those responses as new information comes toour attention.
We need the capacity for Wellness staff to access and change the responses.
With the 120 responses, through focus groups we will be identifying the rank order of those responses to make sure we are giving students
the most important information. We need to have a way for students to review how their wellness has changed over time,
such as a graph for each factor.
Sponsor-Provided Hardware and SoftwareHardware and software:
None
Sponsor and Project Specific DeliverablesSpecific deliverables:
- a user manual for Wellness Education to understandthe process of making alterations in our educational material provided to students. Such as a budget information sheet that includes changes over time. We will need to know how to make those changes.
Proprietary InformationProprietary:
We work for the State of Connecticut and that who holds the rights to the program.
Thus, we will encourage our sister schools to use the Wellness app on their websites with changes they will make to include their own
campus resources.