Categories
Technology

3 Minutes of Fame

Presenters

  • Various, see headings below…I hope I got everyone’s name right!  Hit me up for corrections 🙂

This is a session where selected attendees shared the unique mobile experiences they’re providing on their campuses.

Matt Bunch & Ryan Clemons, Arizona State University

  • 92K students, 25K faculty/staff
  • 7 campuses
  • 2 primary mobile applications:  main app, events app (ModoLabs)
  • Our group provides support for enterprise services
  • We have 116 apps in total across the organization at last census
  • Before ModoLabs, we had tons of different systems scattered across a range of areas
  • Kurogo fills the need of the university as a mobile CMS: we’re looking to expand the usage of Kurogo:  let our clients maintain their own sections, standardize on one platform for clients, standardize mobile design
  • Everything has to run through our group to be in our app store
  • 50K downloads of main app, 1K of Kurogo app
  • Where’s mobile going?:  leaving ideology of responsive, hybrid, web views, advancing towards IoT, sensor driven content, speedier transactions, and user specific driven design
  • IoT:  realtime parking lot availability.  We integrated into our primary maps solutions and will be consumed by our mobile app.

Adam from Dominican University

  • We’re using collage layout for home page, news on first line
  • Relaunching campus news and features
  • We had a homegrown faculty/staff directory; we used Publisher to consume titles, photos, etc.
  • Laundry resources tool has been wildly popular for our students; notification for this is big
  • Most popular modules are Canvas Course Integration, campus directory,  events
  • Next steps:  use beacons for notifications and wayfinding
  • Relaunching news & events, public safety and Rave
  • Inegration of Rave Guardian and emergency monitoring
  • Background notifications based on class schedule

Confessions of a Basement Developer, Phillip Templeton from Fresno State

  • 20K student enrollments, near Sequoia and Yosemite
  • 60+ areas of study for Bachelors, 40+ for Masters
  • Student Center implementation:  register for classes and management of financial aid stuff
  • Food security app:  student food donation; push notifications; user page modification (HTML template)
  • Analytics shows that the beginning of the year is where our app gets used most.  Slower part of the rest of the year gives

Chris Barros, NYU

  • We dramatically simplified our home page
  • We have an alumni day module to focus especially on alums (we call modules “feature” so as to not confuse our users)
  • Besides event schedules, we integrated the alumni Instagram account into

Jeff Delim from Sacramento State

  • 30K students; 7 colleges; 58 undergraduate majors; large commuter population; 23K downloads
  • Enrollment web services:  add/drop/swap.   This is by far the most used feature and has been used over 5 registration cycles
  • We use publisher as a container for everything that doesn’t go onto the home page.
  • 17% of all mobile traffic to PS is via mobile browser (the desktop version!)
  • Future plans:  more student center enrollment services (holds, to-do’s, personal info, financial aid, CashNet, contact info, etc.), parking availability, real-time bus tracking, campus tour, campus cupboard

Lance Smith, App Dev Manager from Sinclair Community College

  • Worked with Marketing to create custom icons
  • Custom .kml for Sinclair’s expansive campus map
  • Detailed building descriptions with images
  • Book list fed by data from Nebraska books
  • QR code generation for event registration; students able to quickly and easily check in to special sessions and events
  • Future: enhance design; smoother SSO; integration with Sinclair Tartan Card; way-finding improvements with iBeacons and indoor maps; campus tour

Victoria from CSU Stanislaus

  • Campus just went through rebranding
  • Two campus locations in Turlock and Stockton
  • App will choose what app is presented based on location
  • Most popular:  Blackboard; Peoplesoft tie-in;
  • Coming soon:  commencement module; virtual campus tour

For Those Who Couldn’t Attend

  • Harvard Shoestring:  built by students for students.  How to get by at Harvard on a shoestring budget.  This gets very positive user review.  They use the “Spectra” publisher screen type, abundant content for each topic making it very useful.  The entire app is done using only Publisher.
  • University of Kansas Academic Accelerator Program:  KU is part of the Shorelight International education program.  Designed for international students attending KU:  prospective students, plus current/new students.  Home screen is a nice summary of all the benefits of KU.  Smart use of social content to attract students.  Has a “before you arrive” feature.  Welcome feature with things like “tips on cultural differences,” extracurricular features, how to get a bank account, key people you’ll need to interact with, etc.
  • Qatar university:  unique challenges:  right to left Arabic, gender specific classes; my favorite splash screen; language selection screen.
  • MIT:  it’s where Kurogo all began; moved from highly customized app back onto the platform; MIT app is owned by the MIT News department; News module is prominently displayed as first icon on home screen; added an image multi-view for news; shuttle NextBus integration has a set alarm function; dining has both on- and off-campus selections, plus filters fro meal selection;

By Paul Schantz

CSUN Director of Web & Technology Services, Student Affairs. husband, father, gamer, part time aviator, fitness enthusiast, Apple fan, and iguana wrangler.

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