ConnectCarolina is added to CarolinaGo app

This year, the student-run CarolinaGo app has extended its services by adding a ConnectCarolina option to the app.

CarolinaGo provides services such as University news, a calendar, map, bus tracker, dining hall information and even schedules for athletic events. 

Diana Dayal, a member of the student team for CarolinaGo, explained that the addition of ConnectCarolina to the app was the next logical step. 

“ConnectCarolina has been something that has been on our radar for a really long time,” Dayal said.

Immediately after the team launched the app in fall 2014, students began asking if they could sign up for classes on it. 

“People want something they are going to use and ConnectCarolina is something we have to use,” said Brent Comstock, managing director of CarolinaGo.

Team members said downloads have spiked since the inclusion of the ConnectCarolina section. Kate Hash, manager of ITS communications, is confident the mobile ConnectCarolina option has helped promote the app. 

“Up until Friday, our largest download month had been 600 downloads of the app. On Friday alone, we had 2,000,” Hash said. “It is clear that ConnectCarolina is adding a value to the app and that the students are now discovering the app because they want to use ConnectCarolina.”

The CarolinaGo team trained orientation leaders this summer to provide freshmen with information about the app. Parents of freshmen also received information about the app during the parent session.

For freshman Kyra Rubin, the app has been a constant help. 

“I definitely use it," she said. "I’ve used it like basically all week to find my class times.”

Freshman Anna Kelly uses the app for maps and transit, but she said the ConnectCarolina portion is the most useful.

“I have used it a lot to check up on my schedule, so I can pull up ConnectCarolina if I forgot the room number or the location of one of my classes,” Kelly said.

While the app has been successful in some areas, Kelly and Rubin said it still has issues.

“Yesterday the app was continuously crashing, which was frustrating,” Kelly said.

The team agreed improvements can be made. 

“I know there have been some glitches. We are in the process of completely redesigning the app. We really want it to be a user-friendly app for all of the features on the site,” Comstock said.

Despite the glitches, the CarolinaGo app has already made advancements since last year.

“Our goal is to take it from just an informational app to one that provides really strong utilities and functions that make life easier on campus,” Hash said. “And certainly being able to pull up ConnectCarolina on your phone and see it in a really visible, well designed way is a really big part of that.”

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