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Hardware/Software
Getting More out of Mobile
10/1/2008
Sure, cellular and handheld devices are quintessential communication tools, but savvy institutions are getting extra bang for their mobile tech bucks.
AS COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES embrace mobile
technologies to enhance communications on campus, an
added benefit has emerged: increased access to administrative
information.
Take Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3), where IT Director Marty Christofferson needed to find a way to make communication between faculty, staff, and students more instantaneous. TC3 is located in a rural, mountainous region of upstate New York, just east of the Finger Lakes; the majority of its students are commuters, some traveling up to 30 miles to attend classes. An e-mail notifying a student of an emergency cancellation or change in schedule would likely be sent while that individual was already en route to school.
Like many higher ed institutions, TC3 turned to mobile technology to better reach those commuter students and the campus community. Already a user of SunGard Higher Education's web applications, the school partnered with the company to create myMobile, an initiative that allows faculty and staff to send e-mails over the school's existing SMTP server, which are then received by standard cell phones as text messages. Student contact data are drawn from TC3's SunGard PowerCampus system according to criteria such as class selection, resident/ non-resident, etc., so that messages can be targeted, for instance, to students registered for a particular class. After a successful beta test with 100 student volunteers, over half of TC3's 3,000 full-time students have opted in to the program.
The clincher: When creating myMobile, Christofferson also worked with SunGard to adapt the school's existing web services for a mobile interface, enabling instant access to vital information over a cell phone or PDA. Students can check their grades, class schedules, and campus news, all with real-time updates. The mobile portal also allows faculty to view class lists, e-mail students, and check their schedules right on their phones.
"Our mobile web applications are derivatives of actual PowerCampus Self-Service web pages," says Christofferson, explaining that his team modified existing pages on the TC3 website to optimize them for mobile access, and created a few new ones specifically for handheld devices. The mobile portal has been stripped of any filler or graphics, making information easy to view on a mobile phone's 21/2-inch screen, as well as ensuring that info is quick to load over a wireless connection-- especially important in a rural area without 3G capabilities. Christofferson stresses the need to keep mobile technology simple: "We tried to think of things that people would want to do while they are on the go, and busy people do not want to waste time scrolling and trying to read a lot of text."
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