Student group serves Mason through technology

The student-run group SRCT develops computer programs to potentially be used by the Mason community (photo courtesy of Audrey Mattaino).

Student-Run Computing and Technology, a student group at George Mason, has been putting its computer science skills to the test for the potential benefit of the whole Mason community.

Created by computer science student Luke Faraone and the manager of Advanced Network Technologies Ben Allen, SRCT has been working on a number of independent computer science projects that would, once operational, be potentially useful to students.

Faraone, president of SRCT, explains how SRCT's projects give computer science students a practical way to apply their knowledge and develop skills that will be useful in the future.

“It's pretty cool to sit down and throw ideas at the wall,” said Ross Bragg, secretary of SRCT. “If it sticks we have something we can hold up and say 'hey guys, you can use this.'”

“It's fun to do,” said member Tyler Hallada.

Of the projects that SRCT has been working on, Whatsopen, would be the first to be released, available in as soon as a few weeks. Whatsopen would be a website where students can see what dining options are currently open, closed, or about to close up to the minute, according to Daniel Bond, vice president of SRCT.

“With the exception of a time zone quirk, it's operational now,” Bond said.

The group is also working on a project called Go which would shorten hyperlinks, or shortcuts to web pages.

“This service would be offered to anybody who wanted to use it for advertising,” Bragg said. “So you could have shortened URL links on posters for programs and housing.”

Bragg also said that Go would be helpful for keeping links under 140 characters on tweets. This hyperlink-shortening service would be “GMU-specific,” according to SRCT Treasurer Michel Rouly, because “go” would give the link a gmu.edu address. Expect Go” to be released in a few months.

The group looks to the accomplishments of MIT's computer science students for inspiration.

“We're trying to model ourselves after MIT's Student Information Processing Board,” Faraone said.

SRCT is also looking to Etherpad, similar to Google Docs, as a model for a Mason version.

Currently, SRCT is working on a repository called Gitorious.

“[Gitorious is] more aimed at computer science students and technical programmers; everyone would be able to use it, but only a few would want to,” Bragg said.

Gitorious would be a way for multiple students to work on the same project at once from different computers and include track changes made to any software projects, according to Faraone.

Apart from their own ideas, SRCT has been approached by faculty to work on a way to store academic papers all in one place on the internet, according to Rouly. The group is open to collaboration and project ideas from other students as well.

“If we get an idea and seems doable, workable, and beneficial, we'll take ideas from wherever,” Bragg said.

Although student-run, SRCT is associated with Mason's Information Technology Unit.

“We are working close in collaboration with ITU,” Faraone said, “but we’re not intending to replace them at all.”

SRCT and ITU have been communicating about SRCT's role with them, “trying to establish exactly how we exist within ITU,” Faraone said.

Mason's ITU hosts services such as Blackboard, MASON-SECURE, and the Firewall internet protection. The main difference between ITU and SRCT, according to Bragg, is that ITU's university-wide services need to be reliable and their project ideas “have to work right out of the gate.” SRCT's philosophy is more organic.

“We want to do cool stuff and if it works out in the end it might be able to be employed to everybody,” Bragg said. “You might consider us ITU’s Research and Development.”

SRCT is currently accepting new members and project proposals. They are open to people from non-computer science backgrounds as well, such as technical writers or designers, who are interested in contributing to their projects, according to Rouly. Anyone interested is encouraged to attend an open weekly meeting held Wednesdays in the JC's Collaborative Learning Hub, room 311, at 6:15 pm.

“SRCT gives back to the community in way we know how,” said Faraone.

For more information on SRCT and upcoming projects, visit their website or email exec@srct.gmu.edu.