1. OneStopCityTech
An Official mobile App for NYCCT
"App that can help to simplify students life at CityTech"
Team Members:
Dinesh Adhikari
Hanh Dang
Joseph Tran
Rinjin Lama
ENG 3773: Advanced Technical Writing
June 29, 2015
2. Proposal Letter
June 29, 2015
NYC App Developer Consultant
New York, NY 10024
To The Vice President of Student Affairs,
New York City Tech
300 Jay St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Dear Marcela K. Armoza,
We are pleased to announce that our team is expert in developing mobile apps for large
group of business and organization. OneStopCityTech App is our next major project that we are
going to develop. The App that we are developing is beneficial for the CityTech College
students. Students can use the college resources like CUNYFirst, Event Calendar, Forum,
Library, Book-Store and E-mail on the palm of their hand. This App will help to simplify
student’s life at CityTech College.
By reviewing the list of features, time and labors to develop the App, it cost $35000.00.
The project will be completed within 3 months. The cost will incur service fees, developer fees,
and miscellaneous expenses. Our detail report with list of features is included with this proposal
letter. We anticipate to hear a good news from you. We hope to have a smooth working
relationship with you as a working partnership.
Thank you!
Best Regards,
NYC App Developer Team
New York, NY 10024
(212)- XXX - XXXX
3. Abstract
Welcome to the OneStopCityTech mobile Application program. This app is developed
for CityTech students and its faculty members. Only members with valid CityTech email ID can
use all of the features. Some of the features are limited to general users. Other users who are not
affiliated with CityTech can install and download for testing or research purposes only. All
rights, regulations, terms and conditions are reserved by the CityTech college. Users feedback
and reviews will be taken into consideration which will help us to improve this app for future
use.
4. Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1
Structure of OneStopCityTech........................................................................................................ 2
Newsfeed......................................................................................................................................... 3
News Posting.........................................................................................................................................3
Accessing News.....................................................................................................................................3
Sharing News.........................................................................................................................................3
Events Calendar .............................................................................................................................. 4
Campus Map................................................................................................................................... 4
OneStopCityTech: Book-Store....................................................................................................... 5
Book Trade............................................................................................................................................5
Communication.....................................................................................................................................6
Library and book store functionality.....................................................................................................6
Advanced search engine.......................................................................................................................7
FORUMS........................................................................................................................................ 7
Questions and Tutorials........................................................................................................................7
Bulletin Board .......................................................................................................................................8
Service and Tutoring .............................................................................................................................9
Job Opportunities..................................................................................................................................9
General Topics ....................................................................................................................................10
Forum Filters and Security............................................................................................................ 10
Signing Up .................................................................................................................................... 11
Connectivity.................................................................................................................................. 11
OneStopCityTech-Blackboard .............................................................................................................11
OneStopCityTech-CUNYFirst...............................................................................................................11
CUNY portal.........................................................................................................................................12
CityTech Email.....................................................................................................................................12
Security ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Research........................................................................................................................................ 14
Appendices.................................................................................................................................... 15
Students Reviews from Other Colleges ..............................................................................................15
Student Review from CityTech Students ............................................................................................15
Our Survey.................................................................................................................................... 16
References..................................................................................................................................... 17
5. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 1
New York City College of
Technology
Introduction
OneStopCityTech is a mobile Application program that is developed to target the
CityTech Students and its faculty members. OneStopCityTech app is available for both platforms
of mobile devices; Android and iOS. The main objective to build this app is to simplify students
life at CityTech College. After thoughtful research over few other college's apps and their actual
user reviews and feedbacks, OneStopCityTech has been developed for its CityTech users.
Likewise, other college mobile app, OneStopCityTech feature are Campus map, News feeds,
Events calendar, Job opportunities, Forum, Book-store, Library and E-mail. Only people with
Valid CityTech ID can access to CUNYFirst, Library, and Blackboard wherever they need
login. It is available to download for free in Google-
Play Store and Apple- AppStore.
OneStopCityTech feature are developed
targeting the students at CityTech College. The
concept of this app is how to simplify or convenience
student life at CityTech by just one log in and linked
you to all features. It is hard for all students to
remember their username and passwords for
Blackboard, CUNYFirst or college email. Through this
app, students can logged in just once, and it will save
your information forever. Anytime, students want to access the features of OneStopCityTech,
students can log in once and it is good to go until the App is live. The structure and list of
features that OneStopCityTech users can use are as listed below.
Forum
=====
=
Campus
Map
News
feed
Library
Settings
BbCUNY
First
Home Screen
Book
Store
@
email
6. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 2
Structure of OneStopCityTech
OneStopCityTech is with a structure anyone can use, as long as they can read and see.
The home page is entirely user friendly with graphical user interface icon. This means just click
and go. Most of our app is all user friendly unless you would like to make some searches through
the forum or looking for a particular course on CUNYFirst, then you would just need to enter in
a few words to speed up the search.
The structure if based off a tree network. One button leads to a few more, which can then
lead to even more buttons until you get to what you are looking for.
EXAMPLE 1: If you are trying to locate the English Department Office
1. Sign into app/ Sign up for app
2. From home page click School Map
3. Map appears with highlighted School buildings and a few buttons
4. Click Departments button
5. Search for English or scroll through list until you find English Department
6. Search result will show up with English Department Information
EXAMPLE 2: Adding credentials to user profile
1. Sign into app/ Sign up for app
2. Click Setting button from home page
3. Click Accounts
4. Select which account you would like to add(Blackboard, CUNYFirst,
CUNY portal, and CityTech Email)
5. Add credentials
6. Click Update and your good to go
So as you can see, most of this app only requires you to click unless you are providing
specific information you want to enter. But it is necessary to enter your credentials for
Blackboard, CUNYFirst, CUNY portal, and CityTech Email if you would like to use those
features through our app.
7. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 3
Newsfeed
Newsfeed is one of the great feature in OneStopCityTech App. Students can see latest
news from CityTech College, as well as CUNYNEWSWIRE. Students can know what's
happening in their College through the Newsfeed.
News Posting
As we know, Newsfeed is our main feature that lots of traffic is flowing on newsfeed. So,
we decided that Newsfeed must be restricted to all users. Newsfeed will be monitored and
controlled by our App expert. Students who wants to post news on Newsfeed can send their news
through email at info@OneStopCityTechcitytech.com. Faculty members can post news
without any interruption.
Accessing News
Once user install an App, user can click on an App, you can see list of features as a icon.
Click on where it says Newsfeed to access to news for last 2 weeks. News that has been posted
two seeks earlier will be deleted permanently from our App.
Sharing News
Newsfeed can be easily shareable to social media site like Facebook , Twitter and
Google+ through our social share button. Sharing is caring. We do care our College where we
study. So, it will be helpful to our society to share our news to them. People can learn and know
about the progress and achievements happening in our College through OneStopCityTech app.
8. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 4
Events Calendar
Events Calendar is the another most important feature of OneStopCityTech App. Instead
of posting events on all the hallways of CityTech college, events can be easily viewed with one
click in the palm of your hand. Users can see list of upcoming events in 2 weeks of time. Since,
events can be added on event list calendar, there is no need of posters to be posted on the wall of
each and every floor in the college. It will save time, resources (paper & ink) and labor cost.
Events will be posted only after the approval by the OneStopCityTech administrator. In
General, events that is going to organized must be affiliated with the college will be posted as
requested. Otherwise, students might need to get approval from the affiliated department like
student clubs or related officials.
Campus Map
Campus map will help new and current students
who didn't have enough information on all the buildings
that CityTech College has. Our interactive college map will
show the list of departments including their phone number
and Office hours which will be easy for students to get the
information.
Once a user clicks on the Campus Map icon, it will
take you to the Interactive map where it shows the college
site map including the building name. When a user clicks on the building name, a list of
departments available on that building will shows up. User can also search the name of the
department through our advanced search box.
9. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 5
OneStopCityTech: Book-Store
One Stop app proudly has a features of trading books student to student. The app
manages a trading books in which student can buy and sell varieties of books in CUNY. Books
are always been expensive for students. They spend $100 - $200 for a single books. They used
their books only for one semester. then, they might throw them out. Expensive books are always
been issue for student. Due to advantage of technology, there are many website where people
can buy and sales used or new books. Most student use a EBay, Amazon, half-ebay.com, book
finder and many more. They disadvantage of this site, it’s impossible to do trade between
consumer.
Book Trade
There are some website exist to do a trade for a product such as Craigslist. Many people
claims about scam. People did not feel comfortable to do trade by website. it is not well
protective site to use for trade. So, OneStopCityTech is made for student. Student must have to
sign up app through their CUNY ID. They have to provide a basic information such as name,
major, CUNY ID and address.
One of the great advantages of using a OneStopCityTech, it can able to do trade between
two or more than two student. For instance in Fig below, Dinesh, Han, Rinjin wants to do trade
books, but the problem to do trade between two people is impossible. Dinesh wants a psychology
book which Han has it, but Han wants a Java book. Dinesh does not have. Java book belongs to
Rinjin, but he needs Math so Rinjin could not able to do a trade to Han. They can enter their
books to trade so they can do trade between three people.
10. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 6
The Figure below demonstrate a process of doing a three way trade between a student.
Beside selling and buying a books in CUNY, One stop app link to City tech bookstore and
library.
Communication
OneStopCityTech app includes a message exchange system, so student can able to
communicate with other student. They can save their message in their account. OneStopCityTech
also provides a McAfee Email Security which gives a guarantee for students to protect their
message.
Library and book store functionality
Student can able to search a book in library and bookstore. Student can also buy a books
of bookstore or lend a books in library from app, so they can save their time. They can just go
pick up their books. Furthermore, they can
11. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 7
Advanced search engine
When a student search their books in library or bookstore. They have bunch of option to
search which includes books categories, ISBN, condition, author and price. They Refine option
where they can Sort order which includes (best Match, lowest price, high price, Newly listed).
Moreover, they can also view a sold items. Cog tools in the image below is for choosing a
category include arts , cookbooks, computer books, Crafts, Engineering, Education, Teaching
and many more. One Stop provides a user for varieties of search option to give better flexibility.
Forums
In City Tech, students have many questions but do not know where to find the answers. It
may be difficult for new and returning students to meet other fellow students. They may want to
have a discussion about a class or their goals in their college career or share their thoughts and
ideas but do now know how to approach their peers. It may lead to frustration and leave the
student with a feeling of uncertainty. Other students may be want to sell their books for a better
price than what the bookstore is offering by posting flyers throughout the halls of City Tech only
for it to go unseen by passing students.
A solution OneStopCityTech offers is having built in forums. With these forums, students
can post their questions, book listings, and discuss many other topics with their peers and City
Tech faculty.
Questions and Tutorials
One of the forums OneStopCityTech will have is a Questions and Tutorial section. In this
forum, City Tech students can post any question whether it is a general question asking about
information of the school or a homework question. For the students who do not feel comfortable
12. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 8
asking others in person, this will be a great solution for them. The threads students create may
contain the same question that another student may have. Other students can easily do a quick
search through the forum and find the answer to their question if it has been previously asked.
City Tech students and faculty can post tutorials in this section. These threads will
provide guides that can help students with various tasks. As an example, a member of the faculty
can post a tutorial on “how to apply for financial aid.” This example will be very good for
incoming freshmen who may not know anything about the financial aid process.
Bulletin Board
The bulletin board forum can be used by students to create posts to sell their used
textbooks. For those who walk around the City Tech hallways are familiar with the walls being
decorated by textbook-for-sale flyers. Unfortunately, it is difficult for students to find the
textbook they need if the seller’s flyers are covered by other flyers. Another issue is that there are
too many flyers and the students may not want to look through every single one in hope of
finding a textbook that he or she needs.
Buy and Sell
With the bulletin board, there will be a section where students can sell their used books.
A student who is looking to buy that book can find it by running a search through the forum. If
the student cannot find the book in the for-sale forum, there will be another section for students
who can post about a book they are looking to buy. Students who own a textbook that is no
longer wanted but is needed by others can communicate with each other through this section of
the forum and set up meeting arrangements by sending each other personal messages (PM).
13. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 9
Students can post other items besides textbooks. They can sell small items such as pens or big
items such as their car. It will be a good alternative to EBay and other similar online sites.
Service and Tutoring
Another section the bulletin board offer is a service section. In this section, students or
professors can post about tutoring sessions. Students can offer other students free or paid tutoring
sessions. Professors can also use the forum to make announcements on when they will offer one-
on-one or group tutoring sessions. All the posts will be in one central location instead of flyers
being posted outside of each department.
Job Opportunities
There are many emails that are sent by City Tech offering job opportunities and
internships. However, they may be overlooked or aren’t read at all. In the job opportunity forum,
faculty and other authorized members can post about hiring staff for various positions in the
school, internships, job opportunities from outside companies, and upcoming job fairs. Students
will have the ability to see a section of the forum that fully concentrates on anything related to
jobs and internships.
Occasionally, natural disasters will occur. Students may want to volunteer to offer their
service to help areas affected by the disasters. This would be a good forum to check for students
who want to help but do not know where to go. Other volunteer services may be posted asking
for assistance in setting up City Tech bake sales or other City Tech events.
If City Tech is hosting a charity event, this would be a good place to find volunteers.
Events like a food drive or clothing donation can help the needy. Some City Tech students may
14. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 10
also be looking for help if they are in tough times. It would be a rewarding opportunity to be able
to help a fellow student and let them know that City Tech cares.
General Topics
In general topics, students and faculty members can post about anything that may or may
not be City Tech related. They can talk about their interests, their class experiences, parties and
other social events, funny or sad stories, and many other topics that can get a discussion going.
Students can talk about a common interest which may lead to the formation of City Tech clubs.
This will make students feel more a part of City Tech and boost City Tech pride. Students can
quickly jump into a conversion and add their thoughts to a discussion by adding a simple reply. It
would be a great tool to use to make new friends and find out what is happening in and around
City Tech.
Forum Filters and Security
Although we cannot control the thoughts of students, we can filter it in the forums.
Should there be any negative or offensive posts, there will be a filter in place to block the content
or remove the post completely. There will be a disclaimer informing students that negative or
offensive posts will not be tolerated and can lead to suspension or ban of the user account.
Student’s right to freedom of speech will be protected as long as it is not promoting hate
or terroristic activities. Should there be any posts with these discussions that is deemed a threat
to students and members of City Tech, the post will be deleted and law enforcement authority
may be notified. Students may receive a warning letter or can be expelled from City Tech.
15. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 11
Signing Up
OneStopCityTech app will require a user profile which you will need to register for.
But what makes this app so special, is the fact it is made specifically for CityTech students and
staff. We accomplished this through our verification process. To make a user profile you will
need a CityTech email. Once your account has been verified, you will have access to your user
profile to navigate and use the app.
Connectivity
In your user profile page you can attach your credentials to Blackboard, CUNYFirst,
CUNY portal, and your CityTech email. Once you have done so, you will be able to access any
of the three applications directly from our app and you will not need to log in from our app ever
again if you are logged in to your user profile. For security information look toward Security.
OneStopCityTech-Blackboard
Some of the inherited features from Blackboard site will be the Blackboard courses
which shows the active courses you are in and there feeds/ announcements, and Blackboard
course tools which allows you to contact fellow classmates/professor and checking grades. The
upgrade we have made to the Blackboard features is the connection to the CityTech forums
which is also provided separately in the app.
OneStopCityTech-CUNYFirst
From CUNYFirst, we inherited class schedule, course module, and pre class
registration. So if you were to use the CUNYFirst portion of our app you will be able to see your
current class schedule, look up course modules to know what classes you need to take if you
would like to look at specific course descriptions. But one of the great features mentioned is the
16. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 12
pre class registration. This lets you look for classes you would like to take and add them to your
shopping cart like you would do on CUNYFirst website. But as a safety precaution you can
register for the class but you will be able to save them in your cart. This is what the pre means in
pre class registration.
CUNY portal
The CUNY portal features we inherited are the e-sims viewer, and the student
advisement degree audit tool. The e-sims viewer lets you check on your e-sims registration
progress and the student advisement degree audit tools gives you a tree model of the courses you
need, taken and shows your degree completion status.
CityTech Email
The email portion of the app will be connected to Microsoft outlook365, where you will
be able to view and manage your mails on a newer, more user friendly layout created by
OneStopCityTech. You will be able to sort through your mail and organize by class which will
auto generate a folder with the specific class name if you choose to do so.
Security
We all know security is a big issue, especially when it comes down to sensitive
information. So we have taken many precautions. The first precaution is keeping the original
source of information provider security as a firewall. This means all information going in and out
of Blackboards, or outlook server will be screened by their own firewall. The second is our own
encrypted firewall which will run as the main firewall before going to the information
distributors firewall. The third precaution is keeping public access limited to only what is
needed. The last precaution is a failsafe in which if there is a security breach in our systems, all
17. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 13
connections from the app to the servers will be released and disconnect OneStopCityTech app.
Another reason why we know our code is safe, is because it will be self scripted from scratch.
This meaning no open source codes or no hidden backdoors we need to worry about.
The layout of our security is very straight forward yet very secure. As described we use
our own firewall which serves as a front end security to keep our user profiles as secure as can
be. But in case of an event in which a security breach has taken place, (Ex. A hacked profile.)
The server will disconnect the individual user profile or on a much larger scale (Ex. A server
breach) the entire server will be disconnected to prevent any leaked information. If this was to
happen, service to Blackboard, CUNYFirst, outlook emails, ... will all still run, and can still be
accessed through their individual domains which a link will also be available in our app if we
disconnect our servers. But you will need to log in through their domain. Also to ensure no
simultaneous logging, we have added session timers to user profiles which will auto logout a
user if they are left idle for a certain period of time, and a auto log off function if the user logs on
from a different location.
18. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 14
Research
Our many research which we based this app off was a poll of questions we have made
which asked the students what they would like in our app, and the results where outstanding.
With over 95% of the student body which took the pole all said they would love to have this app
and the features we have mentioned. But we have also done our research on similar apps which
other university has made based off their students review and actual use of their apps. We have
also done research through big named technology articles like Forbes and Business insider which
showed us the conveniences an app can bring to any environment.
Our research on forums came from the framework of forum sites, such as Reddit, Gaia
Online, 4Chan, and IGN. We have also added a specific filter to this forum, for educational
topics and topics on CityTech only. We have also incorporated the anonymous feature from
YikYak framework which allows students to post anonymously if they like. But also placed a
security feature also similar to YikYak framework which tracks users post even if it is
anonymous. This meaning you can be anonymous to the outside world, but we,
OneStopCityTech will still know who you are for security and safety purposes.
On our security department, we have also done extensive research on securing our app
and information flow through servers. We have taken information from app development
security experts and applied it to our app. We have gotten information from the International
Information System Security Certification, Inc (ISC), Denim Group (Application Security
Company), and Keith Katz of Kony Tech Company.
19. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 15
Appendices
Students Reviews from Other Colleges
By analyzing the reviews and student ratings to their prospective college and universities,
the proposal has been made that OneStopCityTech app is possible to launch.
Student Review from CityTech Students
After doing survey at City Tech College students, the result shows that majority of
students wants app with features like email, campus map, book trade, and newsfeed.
0
50
100
150
200
250
Hardvard
University
MIT Yale
University
Queens
College
LAGCC
*****
****
***
**
*
0
5
10
15
20
Yes No
Email
Campus Map
Book Trade
Newsfeed
21. O n e S t o p C i t y T e c h | 17
References
Campus Map :http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/aboutus/dictions/mapDoc.pdf
Kony Security : http://www.kony.com/resources/blog/eight-security-issues-prepare-mobile-app-
development
International Information System Security Certification:
https://www.isc2.org/uploadedfiles/%28isc%292_public_content/certification_programs/csslp/is
c2_wpiv.pdf
Denim Group: http://www.denimgroup.com/application-development.html
IGN Forum: http://www.ign.com/boards/
Reddit Forum: http://www.reddit.com/
4Chan Forum: http://www.4chan.org/
Gaia Forum: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/
