Inquiry is a multi-platform real-time messaging app that brings anxiety-free, in-person, student-teacher interactions to the classroom via live reactions and anonymous messages sent straight to your instructor's display.

✨ Winner of OwlHacks 2023 "Best in Inclusive Education" prize ✨

At the opening ceremony of the OwlHacks 2023 Hackathon, guest speaker Stephanie Fiore gave an inspiring talk on inclusivity and equity in education. She emphasized how virtual classrooms during the pandemic gave a voice to marginalized communities, such as people facing anxiety, language barriers, and/or disabilities. Platforms like Zoom and their respective "Chat" features gave people more time to form their thoughts before sharing them with the class and more anonymity thanks to private DMs to their instructors. With Inquiry, we bring these virtual lecture advantages to the real world.

Inquiry was built as two separate applications, a web app, and a desktop app. The web app was created with Next.js and TailwindCSS. The desktop app was created with Electron.js, Vite, and React.js. Both apps use Supabase for authentication, data storage w/ PostgreSQL, and real-time message updates.

Moving beyond OwlHacks, we plan on bringing Inquiry to real classrooms both at Temple University and beyond. Our long-term road map includes bringing Inquiry up-to-date with web accessibility standards and integrating Inquiry with learning management software (LMS) tools.

Take a look at our Projects page on GitHub to stay up-to-date with our progress.

If you're interested in learning more about Inquiry or helping out, please reach out to the email on our organization profile.