Release Date: Tuesday, April 22, 2003

UGA MASTER OF INTERNET TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS PARTNER WITH NON-PROFITS, BUSINESSES TO PROVIDE WEB SITES THAT WORK

ATHENS, Ga. — An international package delivery company. A community group building a playground. A Baptist church. An art school. A financial management company.

This diverse group of organizations all had at least one thing in common: a need for Internet applications to help them achieve their goals. Those goals were met with help from graduate students in the University of Georgia's Master of Internet Technology program.

Five project teams from the MIT program completed Internet applications for UPS, Athens Community Playground, the First Baptist Church of Athens, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, and 401K Toolbox.

The students will talk about the projects they took on and demonstrate the Web applications they created at a showcase event Thursday, April 24, from 2 to 5 pm at UPS Corporate Headquarters located at 55 Glenlake Parkway NE in Atlanta.

Begun in August 2001, UGA's Master of Internet Technology (MIT) program is a graduate degree program jointly administered by the Department of Management Information Systems at the Terry College of Business; the Department of Computer Science in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; and UGA's New Media Institute. As one of the few multidisciplinary master's degree programs that UGA offers, the MIT program was established to bridge the gap between management (i.e. business) and computer science (i.e. technical) instruction.

In addition to completing 26 semester hours of coursework over the span of two semesters, students must also spend 6 credit hours learning about Internet project management, during which the students develop an Internet-based solution for a real-world client.

This year, one of those clients is UPS. Students created a Web application to allow UPS management to review and approve field audit tests from a remote location and transmit instructions to the field auditors. They also standardized, streamlined and simplified the audit process, which has to be performed at 75 UPS district locations and subsidiaries.

The Athens Community Playground, a volunteer organization of southeast Athens-Clarke County residents raising money for a new playground, needed a Web site fast. MIT students delivered components of the project throughout the semester. The finished product includes a Web site, a database, a pledge thermometer to register community commitment to the project and a method for making financial contributions online via PayPal.

Another client, the First Baptist Church of Athens, wanted a Web site they could use to Webcast church services and a marketing database application. The MIT students provided that, as well as interactive Web functionality throughout the site.

For UGA's Lamar Dodd School of Art, the MIT students built an application to promote art events (directions, phone numbers, event information) through a Web site, wireless cell phones and other handheld devices (PDAs). The students developed a new XML-based data structure and an application to translate the current database into XML to make the site "wireless-ready" for future wireless applications.

Finally, the Athens-area investment advising firm PMFM Inc., asked students to enhance the look and feel of the Web site for 401K Toolbox, their online advisory service. The students created a new Web site design to better target specific users, provide greater functionality for customers and increase administrative control.

All of these student-devised applications represent the capstone of the MIT program; all are complex prototypes requiring 960 to 1,200 hours of development. Students used several development technologies to complete these projects, including Java, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP and leading edge technologies like XML, ColdFusion, Webcasting, and Java security.

Judson P. Doherty, executive vice president of 401K Toolbox, said the students' work was first-rate. "Our firm's greatest challenge has been educating current and prospective clients about our unique strategy. The MIT team was able to overhaul our Web site to streamline the marketing process for prospective clients and to facilitate communication with existing clients," said Doherty. "The hard work and creativity of the MIT team rivals that of any Internet technology development firm."

To learn more about UGA's Master of Internet Technology program, visit the program's Web site at http://ebiz.terry.uga.edu/mit.

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