Feedbackr A platform for bottom-up communication. x Abstract Die Kommunikation an unserer Hochschule ist gefühlt sehr top-down geprägt. Ab und zu werden Fragebogen per E-Mail an Studenten zugeschickt, aber das ist sehr ineffizient. Feedbackr soll eine fließende und periodische Kommunikation zwischen den Studierenden und der Hochschule ermöglichen. Feedbackr würde wie folgt funktionieren, ein Dutzend Touchscreen-Pads, die strategisch an den meistbesuchten Orten der Universität platziert sind. Zum Beispiel Geb 1, Geb 4. Da kann man regelmäßig verschiedene Fragebogen zentral gesteuert laufen lassen, jedes Mal, wenn man der Meinung der Studenten haben möchte.
Kurzvorstellung / Allgemeine Betrachtung There is a minimum viable product that you can see in the screenshots at the bottom of this document. The frontend is coded in Dart using the Flutter framework and the backend is written in Node.js. The codebase is specifically very modular and can be modified to include a website &/ a mobile application in which the users could complete a specific survey. The rating could be changed from 1-10 to a yes/no question or between specific alternatives eg. a choice between possible new logos for our Uni etc. What I have is mostly an idea, the current software functions more like a proof of concept rather than anything else.
Der Nutzen des Vorhabens It would facilitate the communication of the school with the students. It would give the students a say. Our Uni keeps sending surveys per E-Mail and very few people answer them. In my opinion, students are generally worried about their own university career and don’t really care much about completing some surveys about something that probably when it gets done they’ll have finished their degree already. Feedbackr would be a way to poll students opinion without the need for spamming anyone. It would be fast and effective. One could form an idea on what the students think about an issue within a single day. There exists also the opportunity to turn them into an info-point where students and visitors can view the FAQ and get informed on the latest events in our University. This is a new communication interface with the students, the opportunities for this idea to evolve are immense.
Marktbetrachtung A lot of organizations including our Uni have no efficient way of polling the opinions of their employers/students etc. I don’t have specific data about the rate of completion of surveys that the students get per E-Mail but I don’t think it is high enough to get a quality polling. The other similar applications I have researched only offer online surveys and nothing in-place or “vor Ort” as what we propose. They are almost all different iterations of the same online platform. Feedbackr would be localized.
Durchführbarkeit des Vorhabens It’s not too complicated. I could do it alone within a month or two. We would need some hardware, touchscreen computer/tablets and a server to deploy the backend and send the polling data. I could also just use the university server, especially if there is a DSGVO concern regarding the saving of data on a third partner, we could keep everything in-house. The risk of manipulation is of course present. People can vote multiple times etc. This can be hindered by the timer and strategically positioning the Feedbackr stations in places they would be seen if they tried to manipulate. The data we’ll get is going to be skewed anyway. Even the data that is received from the surveys is skewed on the basis of the sample of people that have an opinion doesn’t overlap 100% with those who answer surveys. This is expected. I believe our data is going to be even more accurate than the E-Mail surveys because now we have an extra layer of anonymity.
Eigene Kompetenzen I work as a flutter developer already and can do most of the project on my own. As it stands today, I’m coding Feedbackr as project for my Human Machine Interfaces course. Depending on if the requests get bigger &/ the idea morphs into something else more complicated I might need some support eg. another flutter developer &/ Nodejs developer for the backend.