Studying up on Study Abroad: Design and Development of MT TravelBlog

Abstract

This thesis describes the process of the design and development of MT TravelBlog, including its purpose, its use and maintenance, and the technologies involved in its creation. MT TravelBlog is a web application envisioned and developed by Rookery Baruch and administered jointly by the MTSU Office of Education Abroad and the Computer Science Department. It provides MTSU students with a platform for sharing their study abroad experiences through blogging, posting of photos, commenting, and instant messaging. The benefit that this custom web application has over general-purpose blogging sites is that its membership is limited to MTSU, and it is designed with the needs of MTSU students and administration in mind. Users may make their content visible to anyone on the Internet or solely by other TravelBlog members. Content is limited to descriptions of study abroad programs that are available at MTSU, so any student who reads about a program on the TravelBlog site knows that this program is available to him or her. Commenting and instant messaging capabilities put in contact students who can help each other prepare for their trips abroad. Administrative oversight by the Office of Education Abroad allows its representatives to respond to students’ needs and remove any inappropriate content. MT TravelBlog employs Microsoft ASP .NET framework, MVC design pattern, Twitter Bootstrap front-end framework, and SQL database. It is hosted via Microsoft Azure and maintained by the MTSU Computer Science Department. It becomes available for student use in summer 2018.