keep~ of peace Computer science students learned where the rubber met the road with Dr. Dana Steil's Cooperative Education class. Using a software program Steil designed, student learned how their computer programming abilities made a difference in the real world- in fact, their work on a computer could save lives on the highway. ors of safety portion of the program to track vehicles. Officers sent updates every 15 seconds to the server so that Boyd could locate where each officer had been and could plot the coordinates to display them on a map, keeping track of citations given along the way as well as the crashes that officers handled. "Working on this project has given me a lot of experience with very large, corporate style programs," Boyd said. Such experience provided Boyd with what he described as "great knowledge for the real world." With this type of program, the students learned about organization and putting their concepts into action with web programming. It also required them to work directly with the Alabama Department of Public Safety, sending information across the network back and forth within the database. Such work had to be updated constantly and performed in "real time." Steil, who conducted his dissertation research at the University of Alabama on police patrol routing, worked to maximize police response time to crashes. By finding segments of highway that had a high frequency of crashes, called "hot spots," Steil developed a program that defined police patrol routes and then evaluated the actions that took place along those routes for patrol flexibility. Steil also worked closely with the Center for Advanced Public Safety (CAPS) at the University of Alabama, assisting in the implementation of a completely paperless electronic crash reporting system. Returning to Harding, Steil brought his research with him and continued working on the program full time with six students in the CS department. Students wrote software for police officers and administrative offices of the courts for a variety of purposes, including background checks for people On Oct. 13, senior Paul Sherrod observes on Alabama mop showing cor crashes that hove occured in the post 30 days. The program was oeoted by Dr. Dono Steil as port of the advanced web application designed and used by the Alabama state police. Alex Shelton Steil said the work taught students to take initiative on projects. "My students are benefited by experiencing the software development process first hand," Steil said. "Their contribution is meaningful and necessary. They have real deadlines and real users of their software. They also get to work pulled over, traffic safety analysis and crash data analysis. "I went to graduate school at the University of Alabama because I was very interested in doing research that could be applied and [doing] something that people could actually use quickly," Steil said. In Steil's Cooperative Education class, students received valuable practical experience that would ultimately "bolster their marketability once they graduate," according to assistant professor of computer science Frank McCown. One of the students on the team, senior Andrew Boyd, worked specifically on the AVL tool (Available Vehicle Location), a part of the mapping as a team and learn to be accountable for their work. This experience will help them when looking for a job after graduation." Interest amooo groups such as Arkansas State Police and Arkansas Crime.,nformation Center had grown since Steil's r.eturn to the sta~,t.-.1.0 he began developing the same software used for the Alabama DPS in Arkansas in hopes of having it ready for use by me beginning of 2011. "I'm excited that Dr. Steil has been successful in receiving funding for a project that Ithink will benefit the people of Arkansas by using the state resources more efficiently," McCown said. Gabrielle Pruitt computer science/moth 17 7 ~
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