After clicking the “Food Menu” on the Ewha application to check for delicacies on the day’s menu, Park Ye-seul (Liberal Arts, 1) was confused when her smart phone instantly shut down. Glitches like these receive many complaints by Ewha students. With the rapidly growing number of smart phone users, students feel the necessity for the Ewha application to be refined.
The Ewha application was first developed by the Institute of Information and Communications (IIC) on Sept. 17, 2010 for iPhone users. The Android version was created the following month. The application’s services include “Cyber Campus,” “Reading Rooms,” “Campus Map,” “Phonebook,” “Food Menu,” “Shuttle Bus,” “Library,” and “Admissions Information.”
The application, however, has no updated notices listed in “About Ewha;” no side bar menus, such as a team project board room, grades, and messages; no Intranet and Ewha Portal; it also contains technical problems, such as shutting down or application not fitting the phone’s screen.
Students see the application’s inefficiencies as problematic.
“The biggest downside of Ewha’s application is that it lacks services related to students’ academics, such as having grades as a side bar menu on Cyber Campus,” Cha Lin-ny (Social Science Education, 2) said.
“Students should be able to view their grades on Cyber Campus from the Ewha application.”
Students also want various functions for the application.
“Downloading a separate program to organize my class schedule seems ineffective. I found it cool how other schools’ applications function as schedulers and student ID cards as well,” Cho Eun-sol (Law, 4) said.
Aside from the absence of certain services, the Ewha application also has technical errors that instigate students to complain. One such bug is that the application is comparatively smaller than the phone’s screen. This is a problem only for Android phone users.
“It is irritating how the application fits perfectly on iPhone screens but not on Android phones,” Hwang Jee-won (International Studies, 1) said.
The IIC is currently under discussion of taking measures to deal with the problems.
“The problem with the glitches is due to the lack of Wi-Fi availability,” an official from the IIC said. “The application’s technical errors will be monitored over in the long run.”
The official also said the IIC is currently creating a new Integrated Administration Information System that will allow smart phone users to gain access to the Intranet.
Students hope that the application will be refined sooner.
“To make students’ academic lives easier, I hope a newer version of the Ewha application that includes more services and an absence of technical problems will soon be offered,” Kim Ho-kyung (Television & Film, 3) said.