Recently on Mashable, the University of Central Florida punished one of their students for creating an app that allows UCF students to know when a seat has opened up in a full attendance class. Tim Arnold’s app, U Could Finish, links to the schools online portal, checking every 60 seconds for updates on available seats. U Could Finish, priced at $0.99, lassoed up 500 users in the first 6 days from its Facebook launch on June 2nd of this year.
Recently on Mashable, the University of Central Florida punished one of their students for creating an app that allows UCF students to know when a seat has opened up in a full attendance class. Tim Arnold’s app, U Could Finish, links to the schools online portal, checking every 60 seconds for updates on available seats. U Could Finish, priced at $0.99, lassoed up 500 users in the first 6 days from its Facebook launch on June 2nd of this year.
The University’s Office of Student Conduct put out a notice stating that Arnold was charged with “misuse of computing and telecommunications resources.” They stated that the app “disrupted normal use of technology, and violated a policy that barred students from gaining knowledge using university tools.” Arnold has since put out a statement replying, “I just feel that the actions they did were very extreme, considering my intent was to help students and not to intentionally subvert the rules.” In addition, he has circled a petition that demands the school unblock the app that makes online enrolment for students easier.
Arnold is facing 3 whole semesters of academic probation and a mandatory research paper on why maintaining a system such as myUCF (the schools internal portal) if difficult and a 1 hour coaching session on how to make good decisions.
As a former college student, this is a brilliant display of proactive entrepreneurship by a talented student. There isn’t an online marketing company that would not want to hire this kid. Although charging students for this program before asking the school for permission to use the server might not have been the smartest move, punishing the kid for creating something helpful and useful could seem a tad bit harsh to most people. Blocking the app and punishing the student the way the university did, could have been avoided. Maybe Arnold could’ve checked with the school first and made it an app that didn’t update so frequently? Either way, the app serves as a powerful tool. If bought by the right University, this app could make this young entrepreneur the popular kid on campus for sure.
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