Staying updated about campus affairs and getting involved with UA events will soon be easier for University students, thanks to a new smart phone application.

The University inked a deal with Blackboard Mobile—which is owned by the same company that runs eLearning—to engineer an application for iPhones as well as the Droid, Nexus and Blackberry cell phones.

The overlap Blackboard provides, paired with the application’s anticipated capabilities, will allow students to coordinate on-campus events from the palms of their hands, said one of the idea’s chief proponents, SGA Senator David Wilson.

“The base product will have a directory [for both students and faculty], athletics in the news, sports scores and sports schedules,” he said. “The app will have an interactive map of the campus where you can type in the name of a building, and it will show you exactly where it is.”

Wilson said the map will probably employ GPS locators already installed on the Crimson Ride Transit System to provide real time updates. He also said course and professor descriptions, along with the capability to add or drop classes, may be featured on the app. A calendar showcasing both on- and off-campus events will allow students to organize them by date and potentially time and location.

“What [the University is] working on developing in the future is having a whole system of things that will go through the app,” Wilson said. “We want to make it where, for example, a professor can notify an entire class that class is canceled via the app, just by clicking two buttons on the computer.”

In addition, the app will include a newsfeed, providing students with constant updates such as breaking campus news, images, videos and various other forms of media.

“Alabama is one of the leading institutions in both academics and athletics,” said Joe Mahonoey, an SGA Senator at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Based on the needs of Marquette students, Mahonoey said he wants to emulate some of the features the UA smart phone app entails.

“I am still in the stages of developing the concept to bring it to Marquette,” he said. “I’ve been in touch with several university officials and will have much of the project ready for presentation to both the [Marquette University Student Government] and the administration by the beginning of the Fall 2010 term.”

Specifically, Mahonoey said he’d like to see Marquette imitate the Crimson Ride locating feature.

“Being located in a major metropolis, I think it would be important to include the locator feature that Alabama has for the Crimson Ride and replicate that for the Milwaukee County Bus System that regularly travels through campus,” he said. “Part of our tuition dollars at Marquette go toward a free bus pass to use any Milwaukee Bus line during the academic year.”