Devhood: Student Developer's Community

Dates

February 2002 — January 2003

Principal Investigator

Tien-Lok Jonathan Lau

Problem

Students need a forum for learning about Microsoft .NET technology in a way that is engaging to college students.

Goal

To create an online learning community of student software developers interested in .NET software development and technology.

Overview

The Student Developer Community project ("Devhood") is a .NET developer's community web site for college students worldwide. The focus is on students interested in learning about the latest in Microsoft technology and discussing software development. During the course of this project, students revamped some software user interfaces and added features, including college-specific themes, intercollegiate competitions, personal calendars, administration features, messaging and chat capabilities, class specific discussion boards, and mobile accessibility. DevHood incorporated a revolutionary user experience and rating system that integrated elements of a traditional role-playing game with an online community, providing user contribution metrics as well as an incentive for users to continue to take part in the community.

Created by six MIT students on the .NET platform in early 2001, DevHood grew into a community with over 11,000 users representing over 300 colleges and universities, as of December 2003. When this group of students graduated from MIT, Microsoft took over site hosting and management.

"Our focus is on learning, but we also want Devhood to be fun and engaging."
— T. Jonathan Lau, MIT graduate, electrical engineering and computer science

Links

Devhood: Student Developer's Community