The University in your pocket: opening access to learning and support

The University in your pocket: opening access to learning and support

Julie Usher

The University of Northampton

Blackboard Users’ Conference, 5th Jan 2012

Drivers

Why mobile?

– Strategic planning and pedagogy

– Marketing

– Demand

Anticipated challenges to openness (pt 1)

Why not?

“not everyone has a smartphone”

“not everyone can ‘do’ mobile learning”

Challenges or opportunities?

1. Inclusion

– Device provision

– Wireless campus

– Mi-fi units

Challenges or opportunities?

2. Accessibility

– Choice

– Personalisation

– Control

3. Usability and skills gaps

– Training and support

What are the needs?

Different audiences (students, staff, prospects)

What’s possible?

Anticipated challenges to openness (pt 2)

Where’s the data?

Creating a ‘one stop shop’

Web team and CIS

Marketing

Library systems

LearnTech

Is it working? Measuring success

Analytics:

1000 downloads one week after launch

>3000 downloads after one month

6575 downloads to date

5 months from purchase to deployment

Most popular link was timetables with 21,686 hits in the first month

Measuring success: what they said

• Twitter (#iNorthampton)• Email• Blog• Spot surveys• Focus groups• Pilots

Get the @UniNorthants app immediately! Dream!!

Get the @UniNorthants app immediately! Dream!!

@UniNorthants has an app!! This is tres exciting! I'm actually having a physical reaction I am that excited. Will make life so much easier!

@UniNorthants has an app!! This is tres exciting! I'm actually having a physical reaction I am that excited. Will make life so much easier!

@UniNorthants now have their own app. Snazzy.

@UniNorthants now have their own app. Snazzy.

Am not tryna gas but thank God for the Northampton app because now I left my timetable at home, I would have been lost.

Am not tryna gas but thank God for the Northampton app because now I left my timetable at home, I would have been lost.

Bloody good idea!Bloody good idea!

Other challenges

• Project convergence (all under one roof.....where possible)

• Skills gaps

• Working within different time zones

• Challenging platforms (Blackberry)

Top five tips

1. Identify needs (and decide which ones you can meet)

2. Bring together a project team with range of experience.

3. Find a provider who can satisfy the immediate need and

provide extensions for the future (SDKs).

4. The app stores are your friends (?)

5. Stay in the loop

Next Steps

• Kaizen...

– Piloting the mobile VLE

– SDK developments and extensions

– Strategies for engagement (bribery etc.)

– Investigating support models

– iNorthampton phase 2

Questions?

Contact details:

Julie Usher

@jules_u

julie.usher@northampton.ac.uk

References etc.

Useful links

•More about the iNorthampton project:http://www.northampton.ac.uk/mobile

•Guidelines on accessibility for the mobile web:http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ 

•TechDis on mobile learning: http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/investinyourself/freeresources/accessiblemobilelearning

•Traxler, J. (2010) “Students and mobile devices.” ALT-J Research in Learning Technology [online] 18.2, p149-160. Available from: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0968%2d7769&volume=18&issue=2&spage=149 [Accessed 3rd January 2012]

•More info on JADU MyAPI (presentation by Steve Martin): http://speakerdeck.com/u/s2martin/p/inorthampton-and-jadu

Image credits

•Photography by Rob Farmer, University of Northampton

•3d characters from http://www.canstockphoto.com/3pod