IU in Your Pocket: The
Latest on IU Mobile
Brian McGough, Director of
Enterprise Systems Integration and
Delivery, UITS
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What’s next?
Maps for All Campuses
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Dining hall menus
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Additional Oncourse functionality
Users’ Choice!
Feedback wanted!
Evolution Strategy
• Feedback from users will be the cornerstone upon
which we will base future investment.
• Your feedback counts, and all feedback will be
reviewed.
• Mobile Steering Group being formed that will
evaluate feedback as well as University and Campus
Mobile aspirations, and will be the governing
prioritization group for mobile at IU going forward.
Mobile Strategies
• Confronted with Options for Investment
• IPhone Specific client applications
• Blackberry Specific client applications
• Android Specific client applications
• Nokia Specific client applications
• Palm Specific client applications
• SMS Gateway for SMS based services
• Device agnostic browser based applications
• Single vs Multiple aggregation points
Weighing the options
• Device specific development and deployment
• could allow for an optimal user experience on a given device
• potentially the quickest response times
• Defining the platforms we would develop for
• Spend of resources to maintain multiple source paths for
each device we would code for.
• Device independent development
• allows for us to deliver a set of services to a myriad of
devices
• Quickest path to product for most devices
• One source repository is maintained
• Leverages existing investments in web infrastructure
Weighing the options
• Survey done to gather
representative statistics of
Types of phones in use at
the University.
• Still dealing with many
classic phones most of
which offer basic web
browsing
• From the survey of the
respondents the highest
percentage phone was the
Iphone, but that topped out
at 28%
Breakdown of Phone Types
Smartphone
Classic
Phone
Making the decision
• Evaluated options through practical prototype
• Prototype development on Iphone
• Prototype development on Bberry
• Prototype development via Web Delivery
• Option for leveraging/joining an open source higher
education effort
• MIT open sourced their Mobi web application
• This offered us a well defined scope of services to
begin with implementing
• Device agnosticism
Making the Decision
• Given expense associated with client specific
implementations, and the need to quickly take a step
forward on mobile, we decided:
• Usage of web delivered services from m.iu.edu
would be primary focus and default option for
delivery of mobile services we develop
• When needed and justifiable, platform specific
development would be done to fill niche needs that
can’t feasibly be addressed in a usable way
The work of the decision
• Convert the MIT delivered code over to IU code to
access IU specific resources, and make it
deployable in our environment
• Connect the converted services to IU data suitable
to offer the services in IU’s environment
• Account for the multi campus nature of IU in our
port of the code from MIT, allowing for campus
level branding, and service palette management.
Ongoing work of the decision
• Campus Branding and Campus Palette
• Continued evolution of base service offering
• Continued introduction of base service offerings
• From a University Perspective
• From a Campus Perspective
• Evolution as new devices emerge
• Campus and Departmental contributions
Implications
• Focus on getting content from applications to
devices
• Ability to leverage existing web based services
(CAS single sign on, etc)
• Evolutionary model for mobile application
deployment that will allow for rapid progress on
specific deliverables
Next Steps
• Solidify base offerings, and embrace campus
localization support where desired
• Further embracing of localized content into campus
environments
• User/Group/Role support for pushing of audience
specific content through the mobile gateway
• Completion of outstanding objectives
• Campus Maps, Bus Schedule improvements,
What's on the menu for dining facilities, IU sports
information for the campus’s
Next Steps
• Develop standards and libraries for building mobile
services that can be offered through the mobile
gateway by units, depts, schools, and campus units
• Review customer feedback, form steering group,
prioritize new work as well as enhancement work to
existing components
• Evolve strategy, as the mobile phone marketplace
evolves
Get Involved!
Contact:
Mobile Team
[email protected]
Tara Bazler
[email protected]
Brian McGough
[email protected]