Freshmen holding campus maps, trying desperately to find their new classes in a foreign environment. It's a common sight the first week of school at the University of Oklahoma.

This year, however, students had a new kind of tool to find their way around campus.

Instead of using bulky paper maps, students pulled out their iPhones, found where they were on the map by GPS triangulation and then navigated around a virtual campus map with a touch of their finger.

The University of Oklahoma released its official iPhone application, OU2GO, just before the start of school, and it's been a hit, at least with lost freshmen.

Freshman Jenny Perry said she's used the map feature of the iPhone in her first week at OU.

"I like it 'cause it shows you the actual picture of what the building looks like," she said. "And I have absolutely no sense of direction, so it helps me."

In addition to the interactive map feature, the application provides weather information, an OU news feed, access to OU's YouTube channel, KGOU radio and campus information. It is available in the iTunes application store.

As of Tuesday night, 4,376 people had downloaded OU2GO onto their Apple iPhones or iPod Touches in 21 countries, said Kim Saylor, strategic analyst at the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth.

That's great news for the team that developed the application -- all of whom are students.

A group of 11 students developed the ideas for the application, built it from scratch and handled the legal and marketing side of the project.

Saylor said she knew of only 10 other universities with official iPhone apps. Stanford was the first to develop one, and the students who built theirs spun off into an independent company that produced apps for several other universities.

It seemed only right that OU should have an application.

"I felt there were a lot of people around the university saying, 'Well, why not? Why don't we have one?'" Saylor said.

So CCEW was given the job of figuring out how to create one. CCEW participated in the project with Public Affairs, IT, Web Communications, the President's Office and the College of Engineering.

Saylor said it made financial sense to use students to create the app, in addition to the fact it gave students a learning experience.