Categories
Technology

Increasing Student Engagement Through Mobile

Presenter

  • Santhana Naidu, AVP of Marketing & Communications, Indiana State University

Today’s students use their phone for everything. How can you take advantage of this new normal and create mobile experiences that enhance the university experience?

ISU Mobile

  • Our office of marketing and communications takes the lead with development of the campus mobile app.
  • 20% of overall website traffic from mobile, was 4% in 2012
  • ISU mobile launched in 2012, lasted about one year.  It was not terribly popular because all it did was provide news feeds.
  • Popular modules:  classes, course catalog, dining, admissions, maps, email, athletics, rec center.
  • Campus Tour (not in the app) is a great tool for us, especially for students who live in Chicago, which is a three-hour drive.

Private Social Network for New Admits

  • Web platform with an attached app.  We have about 1,000 users with 15,000 messages between them in our initial year.
  • We give them a free sweatshirt if they sign up for the app.

Campus Map

  • We’re a CampusBird campus; went live last Fall

RAVE Guardian

  • This is a big part of our communication toolset for our international students.

New – Kurogo 2.5

  • Audience Profiles – 4 personas (current students, future students, Indiana State Onine, Alumni)
  • Reduce clutter
  • Increase relevance

New Sections:  Preview Days

  • Preview Days:  audience:  prospective students & families; activities:  campus tour, meet faculty, info sessions on app & financial aid
  • Orientation:  freshman & xfer students; activities:  housing, financial aid, meet new friends
  • Fall Welcome:  returning students & new students; activities:  daily events, discover what’s new

iBeacon

  • Integrated with ISU mobile
  • Increase app engagement
  • Piloting right now for Fall rollout
  • Social and informational messages
  • Future:  tour app

Messaging

  • Target messages by categories & groups
  • Users can customize how they want to receive notifications
  • Message center within the app so that users can refer to the messages
  • An easy to use backend interface for the administrator
  • Ability for users to opt-in or out of certain optional message types
  • Promotions

New – IDs

  • Student/Employee IDs (cards with chips)
  • Accessible through ISU Mobile
  • Access to facility, transactions, etc.

Q&A

  • Email integration:  what kind of usage are you seeing?  It’s one of the top seven used, but I’m not sure off the top of my head.
  • Are you using Blackboard mobile app, or did you integrate it?  We have a read-only view into the Blackboard app (it’s not the Blackboard app)

 

 

Categories
Technology Uncategorized

A View from the Top: Taking the Mobile Experience to New Heights

Presenters:
  • Hilary J. Baker, Vice President & CIO, California State University, Northridge
  • Santhana Naidu, Associate Vice President of Marketing Communications, Indiana State University
  • Andrew Yu, Founder & CTO, Modo Labs, Inc.

Full disclosure:  CSUN is my home campus, so I have some knowledge of the Modo Labs product…they back our mobile app.

Andrew kicked off the session by talking about Modo Labs.  The whole thing started out of MiT in 2010, but had it’s beginnings in 2007 in the MiT mobile framework (this was back before the Apple iPhone and app store).  At that time, only about 2% of the web traffic at MiT was from mobile devices.  m.mit.edu took about six months to create.  Modern campus mobile apps must serve multiple constituencies, and serve many purposes…as a result, the mobile app charge at MiT required leadership!

Why WAS mobile Important?

Hilary Baker

CSUN is a public & highly diverse university community of 41,500 students and 4,200 faculty and staff in northwest Los Angeles.  We came late to the mobile party.  Campus priorities:  student success and exemplary service.  We needed to develop and launch a CSUN app fast, and with Modo Labs, we were able to launch in just 10 weeks!

  • We used web services to reach into our PS instance to enable add/drop capability into the mobile app
  • Launched our app a few days before Fall semester 2013.  Our download profile was 6,000 1st week, 9,000 2nd week, 17,000 3rd week
  • Next step for us was to enable pay via mobile app and CashNet
  • We’ve since added lots of additional features, including outdoor mapping and wayfinding, dining, campus tours, indoor floor plans, campus shuttle & transportation services
  • Marketing was important, too.  We printed full-color postcards and distributed these campus-wide.  We also featured the mobile app at our new student orientation.
  • To date downloads:  34K Apple, 9K Android
  • Most used features at beginning of term:  schedule, campus map, class search, add/drop
  • Most used features near end of term:  Transit, dining

Santhana Naidu

  • IU is celebrating its 150 year anniversary
  • Located in Terre Haute
  • 13,500 students

Our mobile journey started about 6 years ago.  Leadership realized the importance of having a mobile app.  It was an internal project, driven by IT and the marketing team.  Unfortunately, students didn’t like the app, so we went back to the drawing board.  In 2012 we re-launched our app with Modo Labs.  Some highlights:

  • 22K downloads to date
  • Classes is by far our most popular module (Blackboard, Banner, Catalog)
  • About 75% of users are iOS, 25% Android

Recruitment is my office’s top priority

  • Growth in mobile usage among students: 20% of overall website traffic from mobile
  • 90% of incoming students carry smartphones
  • 40% of admissions traffic is from mobile devices.
  • Campus life content is very popular; students use this information when making a decision to come to campus
  • IT – MarCom Partnership was a major key to our effort’s success:  shared governance
  • Modo helped us with design, programming, app launch, etc.
  • Content entry through the admin console

How Do You Keep a Mobile App Fresh & Engaging?

  • Communication (messaging) – examples provided of University of Massachusetts, DelMar, and Georgetown, College of William & Mary, Massachusetts General Hospital, Notre Dame
  • Use of Publisher module for content management that can be handled by anyone…no coding skills required
  • Personalization with locations and roles
  • iBeacons can be used to highlight items you want people to know about, especially useful for tours and points of interest
  • Geofencing
  • QR codes can also be used to drive people directly to map locations

Why IS Mobile Important?

Hilary Baker

  • PeopleSoft student services (GreyHeller/Modo Labs).  Includes Financial Aid awards, emergency contact info.
  • Parking space availability
  • Indoor-outdoor maps transitioning.  We want to make this feature more seamless.
  • Matador patrol safety – coming in early Spring 2016.  Talked about the CSUN appjam event and shared a video of one of the winning entries in this event.

Santhana Naidu

  • Audience-based content.  Ability to group icons by audience is important for us.
  • Enhancing the campus visit and tour experience using iBeacons.  This really helps our yield activities.
  • Messaging.  We want to be able to target messages by categories and groups; customize how receive messages, message center in-app so users can refer to the messages, easy to use backend interface for the admin, ability for users to opt in or out of certain optional message types, promotions.

Questions

  • Does it integrate with other apps?  Naidu:  yes, we’re using it for maps and tours.  Hilary:  yes, we link out to other CSUN mobile web sites like the Rec Center, Public Safety.  Andrew:  we can work
  • Does your team do the work?  Naidu:  Modo Labs does the heavy lifting for us.
  • What about using the app for faculty and staff?  Hilary:  yes, we have versions for faculty and staff.  Alumni also have a view.  Naidu:  faculty use the Blackboard module, but we haven’t gone much further than that yet.

Visit Modo Labs at Booth #1930; other campuses will also be here at EDUCAUSE giving presentations about their mobile experiences.

  • Del Mar College
  • Dominican University
  • Notre Dame
  • George Washington University
Categories
Technology

Student/Citizen Development with the Kurogo Platform

Presenters:

  • Matt Willmore, Mobile App Program Manager, University of Notre Dame
  • Nikita Shamdasani, UNC Chapel Hill
  • Kyle Koser, University of Notre Dame
  • Zach Waterson, University of Notre Dame

This presentation showcases some of the work that has been done by students with the Kurogo platform.

CarolinaGO

  • Collaboration between 3 students and ITS at UNC
  • Student-driven intiative created through collaboration with ITS
  • Mobile app team has continued to work with Modo Labs for actual app dev, University departments and other campus stakeholders.

Step 1 – Gather Feedback

  • Student priorities listed in focus groups, a kind of “dream list”:  account services, news, maps, notifications, social media, sports, building info, student info and resources

Step 2 – Research other university apps

  • Developed sense of feasibility by using other apps for comparison:  Harvard, MIT, Ohio State, Stanford, Notre Dame, Princeton, Georgetown
  • I looked for partners, specifically a developer who could explain things in layman’s terms without being condescending, a designer and a project manager

Step 3 – Development of App

  • Student government special project
  • Independent project with Carolina Creates
  • Collaboration between CarolinaGO team and ITS

Our Choice to Use Kurogo

  • Free Android iPhone versions
  • Future development opportunities
  • Sustainable trajectory

Step 4 – App Release

  • Soft launch in October of 2014
  • Modules:  emergency alerts, calendar, dining, athletics, campus map, video, news, virtual pit

Challenges

  • Maintaining consistency in app framework:  differences in backends among departments
  • Integrating student priorities:  having services like Sakai on app was important in focus groups, but do not always have capability to integrate
  • Expanding app while keeping UX simple:  expanding offerings important, but have to figure out best categorization for main page of app

Past Semester’s Tasks

  • Lots of collaboration with interested groups

Notre Dame Past, Present, Future

  • Missing 4 modules:  weather, webcams, OIT, lab finder
  • What to do?  Grab some students!
  • Told students:  focus 100% of your efforts on learning Kurogo, it’s all PHP (we don’t know PHP).  OK, learn PHP first, then learn Kurogo.
  • Worked with another student to develop Mobile Printing – student-coded, OIT-owned
  • Based on Print@CU (github.com/saarons/printatcu)

Present

Future

  • Keep momentum going
  • Other needs, including & beyond Kurogo
  • Need to strike a balance between student dev and university needs
  • Governance!
  • Working on a strategy to connect departments needing development with students wanting to develop
  • Projects would be hosted in “civilian” AWS account that ND owns and provisions resources for
  • Participating departments agree that OIT is NOT responsible for issues
  • High-reward, low-risk modules
  • What happens when students leave?  Document, break work into scheduled segments (semesters/terms/etc.), don’t forget the high-reward/low-risk balance.
  • Departmental Publisher modules (commencement, admissions, etc.)
  • We build it and give it to the customer, or give them the keys from the start
  • Continued engagement & consulting to ensure info is accurate, timely and makes the best use of the template

We LOVE Open Source and Kurogo!

  • We’re open sourcing all student-developed Kurogo modules:  weather, webcams, transit (ride request & shuttle schedules), transit backend.
  • MIT license (do whatever you want with it)
  • Available via Modo Labs package channel

 

Categories
Technology

Kurogo Publisher Power!

Presenter:  Eric Kim, VP User Experience, Modo Labs, @huafi

What is Publisher?

  • Browser based page assembly tool
  • gives non-devs an easy fast way to assemble mobile-optimized content and nav
  • Power to publish instantly to multiple mobile platforms, including native iOS and Android apps without IT deployments or app-store re-submissions.

Publisher Templates

  • Newspaper:  navigation-centric, best for highly visual presentation of 3-6 primary plush optional 2-6 secondary nav items.  Layout for both portrait and landscape.
  • Big Idea:  nav-centric, works best for highly visual presentation of 1 primary call to action.
  • Card Navigation:  content as nav, mix curated and feed-based content, content in cards in various sizes, card can contain either curated content of image/text.  Can be highly designed / customized with lots of formatting options.
  • List Navigation:  nav-centric, highly visual for 4+ nav items, nav items shown in a vertical list.  Can do interesting layer effects with this template.
  • Spectra:  nav-centric, highly visual presentation of 4+ nav items, touch-appropriate design that not everyone likes.
  • Springboard:  nav-centric, space-efficient, 8+ nav items, shown in grid of images (often icons) with text labels, below hero section and/or text intro
  • Content:  meat-and-potatoes of most publisher module, text-based content, optional hero image, sidebar, and top or bottom-block.
  • Longform:  completely modular approach, build a page from any combo of content blocks, 11 content block types (hero, heading, text/HTML, pull quote, image, HD image, video, Twitter, FB, feature box, links block, many more coming – table, gallery, map, lead generation, carousel feeds, social, etc.), optional inset (“responsive margins”) = greater flexibility in layout and function.

Demo

  • Showed a site-within-a-site that contained pages with most every element available within each template.

You’ve Got the Power

  • Combine curated + dynamic content + navigation
  • Assemble app-type experiences
  • Delegate admin roles
  • Iterate quickly
  • Create timely destinations to keep users coming back
  • Experiment, prototype, combine
  • Have fun!

 

Categories
Technology

Marketing and Promotion of Your Campus Mobile App

Presenters:

  • Beth Pfefferle, Modo Labs
  • Morag Charlton, Modo Labs

Modules that Drive Traffic

  • Top 3:  courses/catalog, transit, registrar
  • Other popular modules:  admissions, alumni, campus ID cards, computer lab usage, NSO, parking, Student Rec, tours, webcams

Who’s the Customer?  Primarily current students.

Involve Users Early and Often

Monitor your Analytics:  downloads, sources, devices, time on app, etc.

Before Launch

Build anticipation:  get users to test and become advocates; make pre-announcements and generate press; create a mobile brand, make it fun with a logo design contest to get students involved.

Launch & Post-Launch Activities

  • Create consistent message across multiple channels
  • Recruit MarCom
  • Sustain momentum
  • Create a QR code for easy download
  • Email campaigns:  targeted announcements with direct links to download page, create a drip campaign over time
  • Create a landing page, post on student portal
  • Posters, banners, displays
  • Information cards
  • Print and digital advertising (shuttle bus, electronic info boards)
  • Live events, i.e. orientation, tours, etc.
  • Press releases, news articles
  • Social Media, wherever they congregate
  • Videos:  make it funny, creative and thought-provoking.  They don’t have to be expensive to create.  Use student videographers with blooper reel or do it yourself.
  • Mobile ambassadors:  train staff and volunteers, res life / orientation folk.
  • Timing:  target users early with new student information so using your app becomes routine.
  • Keep them coming back by adding special event modules!
  • Instantly add modules for any event or activity.
  • Involve student orgs:  academic advising/support, career advising, career fairs, campus recruiting, Greek Life, intl groups, student orgs & fairs, orientations for new students, tours, etc.
  • Push notifications provide drastically higher engagement and retention.  Examples:  weather alerts, emergency updates, event promotion, good luck on finals, etc.
  • Send push notifications to certain groups of users, like new students or alumni, using app Editions.
  • Announce new modules and app features, share onboarding info strategically after initial download.

Demo

Created a Commencement module with publisher

  • Module is already in the system
  • A list of templates is provided
  • Newspaper template has 2 sections:  hero and call-to-action
  • Added an image, link to map, plus location on the map
  • Published to production immediately – took all of 5 minutes
  • Messaging system can be used to notify users of new module availability – an additional 30 seconds

 

 

%d bloggers like this: