Robust Mobile Apps a Must on Campus

Students don’t always bother with email, but they do check their smartphones, making it more important for colleges and universities to have a mobile strategy. The University of Texas at San Antonio (USTA) investigated its approach and found three issues institutions must address to connect with their student bodies through a mobile app.

The initiative was part of a 2015 grant the university received to develop its PIVOT for Academic Success Program. PIVOT stands for prepare, inspire, validate, orient, and transition students, and is part of an effort to understand the needs of the increasing number of first-time Latino, low-socioeconomic, and first-generation students on the UTSA campus.

Researchers found that push notifications about grade announcements, assignments, and tuition deadlines helped keep students on track, particularly those struggling to balance their academics and family responsibilities. It also discovered low-income students don’t always have access to a personal computer at home, so it created a mobile app that allows them to add and drop classes, buy textbooks, and communicate with faculty within the app.

The university integrated its student information system into its app so personal financial-aid information can be accessed, such as balances, charges, and alerts when payments are due, right from a student’s mobile devices. Along with all of the campus life information found on most mobile apps, the USTA tool also is compatible with most of the languages found on the USTA campus, which makes communications with students easier.

“Effective communication is key to keeping today’s diverse, mobile-first students engaged,” wrote Chris Hopkinson in an article for eCampus News. “As higher-education institutions continue to focus on boosting graduation rates for all students, a robust mobile strategy is quickly becoming the mainstay to increasing engagement and promoting an inclusive student experience.”

Higher Ed Finds Uses for Beacons

Beacon technology has been adopted by some campus stores because of its potential for proximity marketing. Institutions are starting to find ways to make the technology work in the classroom as well.

Beacons emit short-range Bluetooth signals to mobile apps that allow retailers to deliver location-based content, such as sales and directions to certain merchandise. Colleges and universities have found the technology useful in helping students navigate the campus, tracking attendance, granting access to buildings, and identifying where students are during an emergency.

They are also being used to restrict Wi-Fi access to students’ mobile devices when the professor enters the room.

“Coupled with the growth in use of mobile devices by students and academics, beacons have significant potential to dramatically transform learning by offering new ways to students to interact with their peers and tutors,” researchers from Sheffield Hallam University in England wrote in a Research in LearningTechnology abstract. “The potential benefits of beacons suggest that they are powerful, yet simple, unobtrusive and flexible technology that can be applied to a wide variety of situations within higher education.”

Making Tech Work in the Classroom

Technology in the classroom can be a distraction or it can be used to enhance students’ classroom experience. Stephanie Cole, an associate professor of history at the University of Texas, Arlington, has chosen the latter.

“Using technology changes not so much student behavior as my behavior,” Cole said in an article for Campus Technology. “It makes me craft lectures so that I can apply information and create questions and quizzes. You’ll be amazed at how it makes you rethink how to get information across.”

Cole uses an active learning platform that combines lecture-capture with student engagement, learner analytics, and content-management tools. The system allows her to lead discussions and field questions in real time, and also makes it possible for students to use their mobile devices to ask questions.

The mobile nature of the platform gives student the option to skip her class and watch lecture videos later, so Cole uses it to take attendance and rewards students for their engagement in the classroom. However, the 24/7 access to the course materials and lectures has led to higher grades.

“Great access to lecture material—that is, being able to hear a lecture that you missed or to listen to all or part of a lecture a second time—offers good students an advantage, especially if English isn’t your first language,” she said. “For those students, or where this course is their first exposure to U.S. and American history, keeping up with the class is easier because they can review the lectures at any time. I see more A’s and B’s from these hard-working students.”

Test and Promote for Appy Ever After

Some schools are developing mobile apps for a variety audiences: students, faculty, and staff, even the general public. The purposes also vary, from news alerts, security warnings, and event information to campus maps, bookstore purchases, and mobile access to school systems.

The one thing all of these apps have in common is their likelihood of failure. According to CIO magazine, most people download an app, use it once, and that’s it. Some 78% of apps never get used again. “This is part of the reason why the majority of mobile strategies stall, according to a recent Accenture survey of nearly 1,500 C-level executives,” noted writer Tom Kaneshige.

Ongoing promotion and helpdesk support are among the key factors for getting people in the habit of using an app regularly. Usability testing with the target audience, especially early in the development process, can help resolve confusing interfaces and clumsy or unwanted features before they get in the hands of users.

Once an app has been released, tracking and parsing analytics can reveal how people are actually using the app. “Follow the launch with social media and internal forums for users to provide feedback and increase app awareness,” the article suggested. “In fact, feedback is so valuable that a CIO might want to offer a monetary or recognition reward for it.”

One-Size-Fits-All Email Gets Overlooked

Many higher education institutions still use campus email to communicate important information to students or promote upcoming events. All too often, students simply ignore those messages.

One reason may be that many people manage email through their phone and they simply don’t bother with messages that are too hard to read on the small screen, according to a report in Mobile Commerce Daily. The report said a survey by The Relevancy Group determined that 73% of consumers access email via mobile phone, with 31% employing the phone as their main means of checking email. The percentage goes even higher with younger consumers.

The problem doesn’t lie with short, text-only messages. The culprits are lengthy messages and especially email with graphics that aren’t formatted in a responsive design, which would serve up a readable version based on the user’s device. So recipients tend to just hit delete.

“Thirty-two percent of respondents complained that messaging for mobile was too small to read and interact with, so utilizing device-specific tecniques such as responsive design and device detection should be at the forefront of how marketers approach mobile email,” said Justin Foster, co-founder and vice president of market development at LiveClicker, sponsor of the survey.