So, after being bitten by the Android Publishing bug with my first app, the Irish Lotto helper app, it’s no surprise that I jumped at the chance to create a 2nd app, when the opportunity came knocking.
My 2nd app, which has just been published, is called Medical Student MCQ App.
The purpose of this app is to aid Medical Students who are in their final year of med school, by asking them a difficult multiple choice question (MCQ) once per day, for the entire duration of their college year. The theory behind it is if they can learn that one piece of information each day, then by the end of the year they should fair much better in their exams!
The idea for the app came about when my brother, who is an experienced paediatrician, asked me if it would be possible to make such an app. I responded positively and we decided to take it from there, with me doing the technical side, and him writing the questions.
For this to be as efficient as possible, I had to write a basic web form in PHP, using a MySQL backend. He could simply fill in the form with a question, 5 possible answers, a radio button representing the correct answer, and a textarea at the bottom for him to fill in the “tip”. The tip pops up when the user gets the correct answer, and gives them an expanded explanation of why the answer is correct.
Anyway, due to time constraints, we had to enlist 2 other doctors to help with the questions. This worked out well as now we have a team of 3 doctors, each with their own specialised field, able to write relevant and helpful questions.
On the client side, I had to choose between including the full database, or forcing the user to download the database on first run. I chose the latter, and for good reason.
Due to the number of questions, it is possible that errors could sneak in somewhere. Rather than releasing a new app version for each spelling mistake, and hoping everyone upgrades promptly, I thought it would be better to have direct control over the content they see every day. To achieve this, I have put in an “update” button in the menu, whereby the user can download the latest database at the touch of a button. This will include all the updated/refined questions, without forcing an app update through the market. Also, if we want to add new questions, or remove questions completely (maybe due to curriculum changes) I can do so through my little web front end that I built for this.
The app is available now, for a small price of €4, and is available for download from the Android Market here:
Medical Student MCQ App
-Eoin
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