Mobility at Ole Miss

1. Mobility at Ole Miss An Evolving Strategy Kathy Gates and Frank Mathew The University of Mississippi

2. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy University of Mississippi Profile • Public university located in Oxford, Mississippi(about 60 miles south of Memphis, TN) • Liberal arts focus • Enrollment • Total for Fall 2011: 18K+ • Undergraduate Statistics • 23% minority enrollment • 36% out of state

3. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy IT Landscape • SAP for ERP • Student • Financials • Plant Maintenance • Asset Management • Human Resources • Data Warehouse • Portal • Blackboardfor learning management system • Lean, agile IT staff • And lots more …

4. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Key Players Margaret Walden Robby Seitz Errol Sayre PoojaSaxena

5. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy The Real Webinar Title • Mobility at Ole Miss:A Struggle that isEvolving into a Strategy • It’s a hard problem, but we like hard problems.

6. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Highlights from 2011 Mobility Survey • Conducted in September 2011 • Open to UM students, employees, alumni, others • 1700+ participants • 58% female, 42% male • 66% students, 27% employees, 11% alumni, 6% other • 42% of survey participants currently use an iPad • Less than 1% use some other kind of tablet

7. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy How many people in your household use your iPad?

8. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy What is the biggest barrier to using a tablet such as an iPad?

9. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Do you plan to purchase an iPad in the next year?

10. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy How do you think the balance between your Web browser usage and your mobile device usage will change in the future?

11. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy How do you use your mobile device? (top 8 responses for each) Smartphone Tablet Send / receive email Read / share news content Read books Engage in social networking such as Facebook and Twitter Play games Check weather, stocks, scores, etc. Listen to music Look up phone numbers and email addresses • Send / receive text messages • Look up phone numbers and email addresses • Send / receive email • Check weather, stocks, scores, etc. • Get directions • Engage in social networking such as Facebook and Twitter • Listen to music • Manage calendar

12. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy “Other” Uses of Mobile Devices • Make phone calls • Skype • Remote control / wake my computer • Voice recognition searches, text messages, email • Scan documents & business cards • Take photographs • View photo galleries & video • Shop • Read journal articles • View webinars • Patent searches • As a lecture tool to work problems and then project them for the class to see • Read and comment on papers • Low end calculator • Exercise timer • Take notes in class • Manage the campus network • Access library resources

13. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy What do you like most about getting news through a tablet? • Convenience (!!!) • Simple to use • Larger screen and more options to share content • Instant updates • I can lounge in bed and still read the news • Fits nicely in my lap • Light and portable; can take everywhere • Can adjust the font • Aggregation of many sources • HD color photos • Touch navigation • Better use of ads • Better search capabilities • Does not get hot • Can cache stories to read on airplanes

14. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy “I can pull it up real quick and zoom in on stuff I can't see clearly. And I can leave the page and answer an email or check something and go straight back to it.”

15. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy “Tablets are just flat out fun to use.”

16. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy What do you like least about getting news through a tablet? • No or slow wifi access (!!!) • Screen rotates even when I slightly angle it • Material isn't as high level as what you can receive in print media • Here now, gone later • Scrolling • Lack of a dedicated keyboard makes searches more difficult • I can't hold the paper and turn the pages • App can crash • Unable to tear out articles and keep them or show them off • I have to actively search for headlines... which I pretty much will not do • Small screen for clumsy fingers • Pop-up ads • Very few news organizations have tapped into the potential • Nothing, it’s perfect

17. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy "Since I don't have a data plan, I can only get updated news in places where I can access a wifi connection. That means if I’m riding with someone or in many restaurants throughout Oxford, I have to switch to a smartphone to get updated content."

18. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Our Approach • We must have a mobility strategy. • Our mobility strategy needs to take into account differences between device types. • It is more important to be on the right path than to be first. • We need to have a very broad, holistic perspective and consider how various mobile technologies interact. • It is not just about having the right app.

19. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Broad, Holistic Perspective • Text messaging as a bridge until we all can experience push technology • Mobile-friendly views of campus & departmental websites • Mobile access to: • Learning management system • Email • Campus portal • Apps to solve particular problems • Tablets for faculty • Mobile-friendly mass emails • Campus wireless infrastructure & distributed antenna system (DAS) • Need for new policies? • More …

20. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Example #1 • The text message that says your WebID is ready includes a link to reset password. • For this process to work well, the reset password screen had to be re-designed to be mobile-friendly and we began using tiny urls.

21. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Example #2 • We polled freshmen to find out their ideas for new mobile apps. • #1 response was a way to see food court lines from a smartphone so students could decide whether to go over. • Solved by adding a camera and converting campus live cam website to be mobile-friendly.

22. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Example #3 • UM Today sends out daily emails with announcements and events. These are also available in portal. • UM Today, including emergency messages, had to be formatted to be mobile-friendly.

23. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Strategy Questions • What should be made mobile? • Device • Native mobile development vs. Web-based vs. MEAP? • Smartphone vs. tablet vs. other? • Development • Outsource vs. “do it yourself”? • The mobile toolset • What are other industries doing wrt/ mobility? • How do mobility and social media strategies relate?

24. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy 1. What scenarios are good candidates for a mobile solution? • Campus and departmental websites (with adjusted functionality) • Five (current) SEC schools have “mobile-friendly” websites • Ownership of campus website: IT vs. PR/Marketing? • Email • Portal • Learning Management System • Special Purpose Apps • Asset Management • Admissions Counselor iPad App • UM News iPad App • And lots more

25. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Mobile-Friendly Website & Portal

26. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Blackboard

27. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Asset Management

28. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Admissions Counselor iPad App

29. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Regional admissions counselor sees an overview of admissions data and has the ability to drill down into each area.

30. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy New UM News App for iPad ~ Partnership with Mercury Intermedia. Go live set for January 2012.

31. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy

32. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Poll #1: Which of the following “device issues” do I need to consider in developing my mobility strategy?

33. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Device Agnostic Development? • Viability of development tools that let you develop once and deploy many times? • Overhead of a middle layer that sits between the application and the device to make it device agnostic. • Applications have to be generic in nature and cannot take full advantage of a platform. • Overhead of understanding the proprietary standards and technology used to build such an application (different from that of the device). • HTML5 • Popular features such as geo-location and local storage generally supported along with good support for graphics and embedded content. However support for advanced features is still evolving.

34. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy

35. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Poll #2: Which development approach will likely be part of my mobility strategy? Blackboard UM and dept. websites, asset management, admissions counselor UM News App All All

36. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Development Strategy Questions • Is it important that I be able to change the app after go live? • How does my university’s in-house mobility expertise compare with the vendor’s expertise? • Is the cost to have a vendor develop the app reasonable? • Does this process or service require an approach that is unique to my university? • What mobile development tools come with my ERP?

37. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Fundamental Problems to Solve • How will you authenticate and authorize users? • Web-based • Native • How will you connect (securely) to your ERP from a mobile device? • Web-based • Native

38. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Authentication Continued • Poll #3: Have you solved these problems at your university? • Yes • No

39. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Accessing ERP Data • UM has licensed & implemented SAP Netweaver Gateway middleware to expose desired ERP content as REST-based web services that follow the ODATA protocol.

40. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Open Source Tools and Techniques • Mobile Web • Smaller screens and costly bandwidth make existing websites difficult for many mobile users. • Three solutions: Do nothing, build a distinct mobile site, or retrofit the existing site with mobile features. • Best option: Anticipate visitor needs, but offer option of either mobile or desktop versions. • ODATA • The middleware exposes ERP content via REST based web services using the Open Data protocol. • Hence the web services can be consumed from any platform for which an ODATA SDK is available. • See odata.org for ODATA SDK client libraries for various platforms including iOS, Ruby, .NET, JAVA and PHP. • olemiss.edu/mobileproject

41. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy More Tools • Tools to manage institutionally-owned and possibly personally-owned devices • Examples • SAP Afaria • Silverback MDM • F5 Enterprise Manager • IBM’s Mobile Security Service • Poll #4: Is your university using software to manage mobile devices in the field? • Yes • No

42. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Recently deployed SAP apps across several industries

43. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy Mobile News! • Major transitions in the news industry • UM partnering with Mercury Intermedia to develop university news app for the iPad • UM will host Mercury’s M3 platform on site • Relies on media “feeds” • Go live ~ January 2012

44. Mobility at Ole Miss: An Evolving Strategy For More Information • Kathy Gates • kfg@olemiss.edu • Frank Mathew • fmathew@olemiss.edu • olemiss.edu/mobileproject