A Review Platform for UVA Student Housing; How Do Review Platforms Affect Reviewees? 262 views

My capstone research addresses the asymmetry of information when college students sign leases for their off ground apartments. They have short time to make a decision on a large financial commitment. I created a website using Django and hosted it on AWS. People could review about their apartment experience on the website. They could also read other reviews and learn about which apartments are better. This technology could change the way people make decisions and there are multiple stakeholders in this. Students could make better decisions on where they want to rent. Landlords could see feedbacks. I think this is the natural way to solve this problem. If people need more information to make their decision, we should give them. I used surveys. I sent questionnaires to my Airbnb hosts to ask what they think about this kind of review platforms. I received around 10 responses out of around 20 surveys. I asked open questions. The merchants may either think that the review is fair or not. The STS research investigates the ethical implications of my capstone project, that to what extent it’s ethical to write a website that let people comment and evaluate on external stakeholders.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

review; platform; airbnb

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Technical Advisor: Danial Graham STS Advisor: Pedro Francisco, Richard Jacques Technical Team Members: Melody Su, Rachel Ding, Jennifer Sheng, Dennis Chiappetta

English

2023-05-15