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).
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.