Mobile

Southeast Missouri State University launched its mobile website in January this year. When I heard the news I was very pleased because a team from SEMO had attended the Going Mobile Webinar Series in October 2009.

A few months ago Thomas Marrone, Web Design & Support Manager at SEMO Marketing & University Relations emailed me to share the news (and say thanks). At that time, I asked him a few questions about the whole project. Things have been so busy for those past few months that this email interview got stuck in my “draft post” pile.

With the next Going Mobile Webinar Series scheduled on August 4, it makes sense to publish this interview now as it might give you an idea of how the higher ed Mobile Web Open Source Platform developed and maintained by our presenter, Dave Olsen, can help you (whether you attend the webinar or not).

Southeast Mobile Web Site, Southeast Missouri State University

1) How long did it take to develop the mobile version of your website? How big was the team working on this project?

The project was completed on Jan. 19 and we launched it on the 21st. We had been working on it off and on since October 2009, so about three months.

Brian Holdman, Technology Specialist for University Advancement, took the lead on this project and figured out the nuts and bolts. I handled the interface design. We had networking support from Tom Westbrook and Tre Wallhausen and application support from Dan Koeppel, all in Information Technology. One of our student workers, Daniel Johnson, also provided usability input and a lot of work on the database that drives the campus map.

So the site was done with the involvement of 5 full time staff and one student worker, though we all chipped in with bits and pieces and developed the mobile site on the top of our other responsibilities.

2) How did the webinar series “Going Mobile” help you with the development of this website?

The Webinar was crucial in introducing us to the MIT Mobile framework and the work that Dave Olsen did adapting the Framework for use at other campuses. We also got in touch with Dave directly and he was very gracious in answering our questions once we really dug into the project.

3) What did you learn during the process that might help your colleagues at other institutions?

Don’t be afraid to mess around and see how far you can take a side project. We started messing around with the Mobile Framework to see what was possible, and as we began working with it, it became clear that we really could build a product for the campus using the resources we had.

Because the MIT people and Dave were willing to share their work with the Higher Ed community we could take that and create a mobile site with extremely limited resources. The only thing we “paid” for the mobile site was the HigherEdExperts Webinar fee; everything else was institutional labor cost the University was going to be paying anyway. When you compare that to some Universities that have paid $40,000 for a vendor to build them an iPhone application I think we made out pretty well. So, the lesson from all that is to keep an eye on what’s out there and always take up on someone’s offer to share what they’re doing with you.

I started to write about the mobile web in higher education about a year ago (The ABC of Mobile Marketing for my University Business column), but I know I’ll be writing more and more about it in the coming months (and not because of the August 4 “Going Mobile” webinar series by Higher Ed Experts).

You might have noticed yourself that several sessions and workshops about the topic have been popping up this year at higher ed conferences. So, it sounds like we have finally passed the very-early-adopter phase with more and more institutions starting to cater to their mobile web users.

If you still need to sell the mobile web to your boss, I’ve gathered some fresh data from two different surveys to help you build your case.

I’ve already shared some of the data included in the E-Expectations Report published last week, but I’d like to bring to your attention a single data point from this survey:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report about Mobile Access two weeks ago (July 7, 2010) with really up-to-date results as the survey was done by phone (landlines and cell phones) between April 29 and May 30, 2010.

You can download the 25-page PDF report for free, but here are the most useful data points for marketers and web professionals in higher education.

• 9 in 10 young adults aged 18-29 own a cell phone (compared to 82% for all adults)
• 19% use a cell phone only to go mobile, 84% use a laptop AND a cell phone
• 55% of all cell phone owners go online at least every day
• 52% of 18-29 year olds and 52% of college grads of any age go online with their phone several times a day
• 65% of 18-29 year old cell phone owners access the internet with their phone
• 19% of 18-29 year old cell phone owners have made a charitable donation by text (compared to 10% for 30-49 year old users) – Could it be the solution to get young alums in the habit of giving to their alma mater?
• Young adults are more likely than older users to engage in mobile data applications as shown in the chart from the Pew Internet and American Life Project below.

As you can see, the mobile web channel is definitely getting a fair share of attention and action from students and young alums.

While several institutions have chosen to outsource the development of their mobile websites, you don’t have to go this route thank to the higher ed open source platform based on MIT Mobile and further developed by Dave Olsen from West Virginia University.

If you want to get started more smoothly, you should definitely register for Going Mobile: How to develop the mobile website of your institution with Mobile OSP.

I’m really excited to announce that Dave Olsen from WVU has finally decided to blog at Mobile in Higher Ed.

Dave did a tour-de-force last summer by developing in 19 days WVU mobile website. Last year he used the MIT Mobile platform. He has kept modifying the platform ever since to make it easier to adapt.

Mobile in Higher Ed – for when i need more than 140 characters

On August 4, Dave will present an updated and improved version of the 2-webinar series he gave last October for Higher Ed Experts, Going Mobile: How to Develop your Higher Ed Mobile Website. The series includes a demo where Dave will walk you through the different steps necessary to use the Mobile Open Source Platform, Mobile OSP. The demo will be available for registered participants as soon as June 28, so you can get started on your summer projects.

Going Mobile | Higher Ed Experts

With all the current buzz around the professional use of Twitter, Facebook or YouTube in admissions, alum offices or institutions at large, it’s hard to believe that social media has been around in higher ed for 5 years or so.

While MySpace isn’t the talk of the (campus) town anymore, it played an important role – a few years ago – in this social media tsunami. At that time, danah boyd was already studying and researching these websites — and her work made me think about the possibilities for admissions marketing practices back in February 2006. More recently, I shared on this blog my comments about a paper she co-authored about retweeting practices.

Fast forward to 2010. Social media isn’t optional anymore to engage our constituents and Dr. boyd is one of the most sought-after experts on the social media practices of young adults – presenting around the world about the topic.

That’s why I’ve been on Cloud 9 (haven’t you noticed? ;-) since she accepted last December my invitation to present this summer a Master Class about her latest research. While danah boyd is scheduled to speak at several conferences in the next few months (including CASE Summit for Advancement in New York), this online lecture followed by a Q&A is a unique opportunity to get ALL your team members and colleagues on campus to learn how young adults truly use social media and how higher ed institutions should engage them.

Scheduled on July 15, 2010 at 1PM ET (with the recording available for a full-year as part of the registration fee), this 1-hour online event is the perfect occasion to help your team (and all the other offices on campus) understand how younger constituents (prospective and current students as well as young alumni) use social media and make sure no time is wasted with social marketing tactics missing the mark.

Master Class: Social Media Practices | Higher Ed Experts

Gather a large group in front of a screen with an LCD projector in a big conference room and make this Master Class a professional development event on campus!

Register at www.higheredexperts.com/socialmedia by July 5, 2010, but hurry up as only 80 virtual seats are available for this event and they are expected to fill up very quickly.

I don’t know about you, but lately, I’ve struggled to get all the things on my to-do done. Mostly because my list is getting longer by the minute…

While there’s a lot of pressure on your schedule, it has never been as important to make sure your skills are up-to-date as it is today.

That’s why I ask our Faculty Members at Higher Ed Experts to squeeze as much goodness (practical tips and great advice you can use right away) in our series as possible.

In our next webinars, we will even give you some “homework” (we prefer to call it: a couple of “challenges”) in our Web Writing Boot Camp and hands-on experience in our Usability Testing 360 series.

As usual, places are limited, so it’s always wise to register ahead of time if you want to secure a spot for your team. You can register by visiting each of the dedicated web addresses of the series. And, if you have any questions, feel free to email karine@higheredexperts.com – always happy to help.

Web Writing Boot Camp: strategies, techniques and tools to write Web content that will be read
May 18, 19 & 20, 2010 – 1PM-2PM ET
Register by May 10, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/webwriting

Going Mobile: How to build a mobile website for your institution in 24 hours
June 1st, 2010 – 1PM-2PM ET and a pre-recorded demo
Register by May 24, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/goingmobile

Usability Testing 360: How to run usability tests and dramatically improve your website
June 16 & 17, 2010 1PM-2PM ET
Register by June 7, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/usability360

My latest UB column is now available in the February issue as well as online: “Websites Gone Mobile: More institutions exploring—and succeeding with—mobile web”

In this column written last December (so many new mobile websites have been launched since then – I’ll post even more examples in the coming days), I provide a few examples of mobile websites developed by higher ed institutions – including West Virginia University’s mobile website developed in 19 days by Dave Olsen – along with some traffic data.

Websites Gone Mobile

BTW, if you are a University Business reader who has just discovered collegewebeditor.com, welcome! Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog via RSS or email.

I’ve just finished watching the recording of a live webinar about the mobile website of North Carolina State University Libraries: Library in Your Pocket: Strategies and Techniques for Developing Successful Mobile Services.

This free 60-minute webinar was presented by David Woodbury, Libraries Fellow and Jason Casden, Digital Technologies Development Librarian at North Carolina State University to an audience of about 400 Educause members on January 20, 2010.

The session was really interesting as it provides a good overview of the project as well as a few great recommendations for going mobile, tips that can be applied to any mobile website (and not just libraries’).

Like the institutional mobile website, NCSU Libraries’ mobile website was based on the MIT Mobile Web platform and developed in about 3 months by a team of 3 working between 25% and 40% of their time on this project. You can check it out at http://m.lib.ncsu.edu

Here are a few good tips I retrieved in the notes I took during this session:

• Don’t “mobilize” everything: it’s important to think about the kind of content you need and should provide to your mobile web users. What makes sense in the context of on-the-go browsing or searching.
• Minimize the need to enter data by typing: ever tried to type more than 4 words on an iPhone? It’s not because it’s possible that you make your mobile web visitors do it.
• Don’t shrink your web pages: keep only the essential content and relevant features
• Think about exposing hidden but useful content in the context of the mobile web user
• Don’t forget to link back to the “normal” website homepage: smartphones do a good job at displaying “regular” websites and some of your users might want to check out something specific they know is there.
• Set up a redirect on your normal website homepage to direct traffic from mobile devices to your mobile website – and to promote it.
• Use guerrilla testing to test your mobile website: go to the mobile phone store and check out your website on all the available devices – you might want to ask the permission of the store owner. You can also create a panel of mobile campus testers using different devices – and email them for feedback when you implement new developments
• Don’t forget to promote your mobile website to your students on different channels.

You can also have a look at the short YouTube video they did to promote this mobile website – nice production:

Want to learn more?
You can access the webinar recording and the presentation slides online at Educause.

Web professionals have always frown upon the use of PDF as the online version of a print newsletter or magazine.

For some publication officers and college magazine editors, PDF is an easy way to provide the online version of their hard print work.

Just take the final file from the designer (PDF has been used for proofs for many years), have it uploaded to the web server and… voila!

According to The State of Print and Electronic Publications in Higher Ed, a survey completed by 198 professionals last year, PDF is the format of choice for the electronic version of the main magazine in 38% of the cases as shown below.

• PDF file of the print magazine: 38%
• Website powered by content management system: 21%
• Email newsletter: 18%
• Flash-based flipping-through digital magazine: 12%
• Website powered by a blogging platform: 6%
• Other: 4%

Even if the practice is quick and cost-effective, it has been proven by many usability studies that PDF isn’t a user-friendly format for people browsing on computers. These files were also problematic for search optimization as their content was not indexed by search engines in the past – but this isn’t the case anymore.

Yet, in web circles, PDF still has a bad vibe. No respectable web professional wants to see PDF used on web servers for anything except maybe for official forms that needs to be printed.

While I still think web versions of print magazines or other publications are a better way to cater to readers using a computer or even a smartphone (or a pocket sized web mobile device like the iPod Touch), I can’t help think it won’t be the case for ebook readers or tablets – especially when these new “reading” devices are going to get a big push from students looking for a better text book solution.

So, what should a college magazine or publication officer do?

Adopt a multichannel approach: develop a real online version and keep the PDF version for print publications – even if they end up not printing them anymore in the future.

What do YOU think?

Last week, I attended the rehearsal of Dave Olsen‘s webinars on how to create a mobile website for your university in 24 hours or less.

And, I’m happy to report that he has really done a lot of work to make the implementation of MIT Mobile Web very easy through the integration of some Google services. In just a few edits, you can get a mobile website for your institution complete with a campus directory, news, campus map and a calendar of events.

It is really amazing and definitely worth the registration fee with the time you will save – by attending the webinar – implementing the open source package.

Since I’ve received a few requests to postpone the registration deadline of Dave’s webinar series, Going Mobile, I’ve decided to give you a few more days to register if you are interested.

Registration will close this Friday (October 16, 2009) at 9PM ET: www.higheredexperts.com/goingmobile.

This 2-webinar series is composed of a live event and a pre-recorded session that can be watch on-demand.

Register for Going Mobile Webinars

Going Mobile: How to build a mobile website for your institution in 24 hours
October 21st 2009 – 1PM-2PM ET (rain date: October 28, 2009)

Can you find your way in a page of HTML code, use Google services and follow basic steps?
Then, you can develop a mobile website for your institution compatible with smart and regular mobile phones in no time and on a dime.

David Olsen, Professional Technologist at West Virginia University, will explain why and how to build your institutional mobile website in 24 hours (or less) and… for free. He will demonstrate all the steps involved in using MIT Mobile, an open-source mobile web platform, and will share the shortcuts and code he developed to implement the calendar, map and news features for WVU Mobile Web.

Registered institutions include:

• Indiana State University
• The University of Iowa
• Missouri University of Science and Technology
• Upper Iowa University
• Susquehanna University
• Point Park University
• UTM
• Rowan University
• University of Delaware
• Southeast Missouri State University
• Angelo State University
• Washington State University
• UC Berkeley
• Lehigh University
• Emory University
• University of Tampa

For more info and to register, you can visit www.higheredexperts.com/goingmobile

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Dave Olsen’s achievement in developing a mobile website for West Virginia University in just 19 days using MIT Mobile Web open-source platform.

Dave spent some time customizing the existing code (that’s the beauty of open-source projects) to integrate Google services and reduce the implementation process to just a few hours.

I followed his progress very closely and asked him if he would be willing to share lessons learned and his shortcuts with the higher ed community. Dave agreed.

As a result, he will present a 2-webinar series next month on how to build a mobile website for your institution in 24 hours or less, “Going Mobile.”

This series is composed of:

1. a pre-recorded session – that can be watched on demand – showing the step-by-step development of an institutional mobile website in real time
2. a live presentation – scheduled on October 21st, 2009 – explaining the main development principles and addressing questions from the audience.

Going Mobile: How to build a mobile website for your institution in 24 hours
October 21st 2009 – 1PM-2PM ET (rain date: October 28, 2009)

Can you find your way in a page of HTML code, use Google services and follow basic steps?
Then, you can develop a mobile website for your institution compatible with smart and regular mobile phones in no time and on a dime.

David Olsen, Professional Technologist at West Virginia University, will explain why and how to build your institutional mobile website in 24 hours (or less) and… for free. He will demonstrate all the steps involved in using MIT Mobile, an open-source mobile web platform, and will share the shortcuts and code he developed to implement the calendar, map and news features for WVU Mobile Web.

Places are limited for this series and registration will close as soon as it is sold out. So, don’t delay and register as soon as possible to reserve your seat at www.higheredexperts.com/goingmobile

If you have any questions, just email me at karine@higheredexperts.com

Upcoming Webinar: Going Mobile