Mugger is an Android app-based platform that allows its users to quickly scan through the study listings available, indicate their attendance for those that they are interested in, as well as create their own listings for others to join and delete them once they are done.
It was designed with the intention to increase the number of face-to-face opportunities to socialise and make useful connections by studying together for a common module.
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Ensure you have a phone running Android 4.4 (KitKat) or later.
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Download and install the apk file located on our release page.
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Open Mugger from your android device’s launcher.
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Tap the login button to log in with your Google account. After doing so, it should redirect you to a second login page for your NUSNET account (only for first-time users).
The UI for these features is shown in our video, along with a brief reiteration of our project aims and scope. Most of the UI has been adjusted to conform to material design guidelines to provide a better user experience.
Primary login method will be using your Google account, although first-time users will be prompted to login a second time with their NUSNET (IVLE) account, to prove that they are a current NUS student/staff and to fetch necessary information like current modules.
There will be an in-app explanation to inform the user the reason for logging in to IVLE and the data that we collect and the hashing (SHA-256) we use to keep their actual NUSNET ID unretrievable from our data. Google login was implemented as the main method due to the fact that it allows for the login information to be remembered, thus users do not need to re-enter it every time they log out of the app, unlike IVLE login which does not have that user-friendly feature.
Listings are used to facilitate the organising of face-to-face study sessions and/or consultations among all users, including Teaching Assistants (TAs) and professors.
Tapping on the 'down' arrow on a listing will expand it and give you more information about it, where you can also indicate your attendance. All listings will also have a chatroom specific to that listing, where users can interact with others attending that same listing, including the listing creator. Do note that chats serve to help users decide if they want to attend that particular listing, and are not meant to replace the end goal of a face-to-face study session.
In the chat and attendees list, you can tap on a user’s display name to be redirected to their profile (refer to 3.2 below).
Only the listings that you have joined will show up here, for you to easily keep track of all your appointments.
You can also edit and delete your listings from these pages as shown on the right. Note that when a creator deletes his/her listing, all of its information (including chat messages) will be erased, and it will also disappear from all the listings pages. There will also be a button on the bottom right of the screen to create listings. Admins are able to edit and delete any listing, including those that are not their own.
Here you will find your personal information, like modules and current display names. You can also type in additional information to personalise your bio. All these will be displayed to any user that views your profile for added user experience.
Only admins will have this extra option in the navigation drawer to access all the reports, feedback and prof/TA requests sent by users. They can then decide to take further action, such as muting malicious users for a specific number of hours . Other profile options that are only displayed for admins include 'Make TA/Prof ' and 'Change Mugger Role ', which allows for a user to be elevated to become an admin or vice versa . This promotion or demotion of roles can only be done by a master , who oversees all admins, and the admins in turn manage the users.
This feature can also be accessed from the three dots action bar. It is used for refreshing the current modules of a user, in the event that they have changed modules or for the beginning of a new semester. Users will be required to go through IVLE login again to fetch the required data.
This page allows users to send feedback that is viewable only by the admins. This is a channel for users to suggest application improvements and report bugs. This is valuable for us to improve the app in terms of user experience.
This page allows users to request to be registered as a Professor or TA for the module that they are teaching. They’ll be required to type in the module code along with proof of their position. These requests can only be viewed by admins who can approve such requests and give them their respective roles(section 3.3) so that they can make specially tagged listings as mentioned in section 3.1.
Users can now customise their filter settings using ‘Custom Filters’ from the navigation drawer. This allows for advanced filtering options. Under ‘Settings’, they can also enable unrelated modules to be shown to them, in case they want to attend study sessions for modules they are interested in but not officially enrolled in. These filter settings are stored in the database so that users would not have to.
This brief tutorial describing the purpose and usage of the app will be shown to first-time app users, and can subsequently be accessed anytime from ‘View Introduction’ under the three dots action bar at the top right corner.
This intuitive display of the listings that a user is attending will help keep track of all such appointments in a way that is already familiar to the average user who uses any other calendar app. A red dot under a date indicates that there is at least one study session, and tapping on the date will reveal the listing(s) scheduled for that day. Pulling down the screen will refresh the dates that are marked with the red dot.