94% of the students we surveyed said they use their smartphone daily. It is the MOST USED device, even more than a laptop!
About Us
(Our purpose – How we began – People involved – What we’ve done)
Our purpose
“… focus on one or a few large campus-wide mobile apps or services that will help improve the student campus experience…. and help make those possible by finding and combining the appropriate resources.”
Mobile is such a large issue to tackle, we thought we would start with our largest group of mobile users, the students!
Key Elements:
- Develop Mobile Apps or Services to fit student needs – find out what the students actually NEED to help guide us in our efforts
- Student Engagement – involve students in each stage
- Improve Communication to campus – get the info to those who need it
How did we get started?
Mona Heath and Joel Steinfeldt started a mobile user group. Mona retired and other priorities arose.
Dena Strong sent an email in 2014 about reviving the user group
Amy Hovious (CITES) and Jim Caputo (AITS) both responded to the email
Amy invited Jim Hahn from the Library to join the group based on his work in mobile development. Jim, Jim and Amy started to meet to talk about mobile around campus.
Amy then teamed up with Robert Baird and Michel Bellini. They all met to discuss the state of mobile on campus.
At this point a grassroots group started to form. Over time, more and more people joined the efforts. Michel brought some folks from the Provost’s office to the discussion, and Amy invited Joel from Public Affairs to join in the discussion, as well.
We now have many units on campus involved in our group.
People Involved
Some folks involved so far…
AITS
- Jim Caputo
- Marla McKinney
- William Seemann
- Eddie Tsai
Center for Innovation In Teaching and Learning
- Michel Bellini
- RJ Kunde
- Jim Wentworth
- Robert Baird
Technology Services
- Amy Hovious
- Dena Strong
CocoaNuts
- Student IOS Programming group
Office of the Provost
- Kristi Kuntz
- Kathy Martensen
Office of the Registrar
- Rod Hoewing
Library
- Jim Hahn
- Megean Osuchowski
OTM
- Svetlana Sowers
Public Affairs
- Joel Steinfeldt
What have we done so far?
One of our biggest pushes for the group is to involve students in the entire process of finding, creating and distributing mobile apps and services.
We took some time to meet with students face-to-face in focus groups to get us started in the right direction. We met and asked them questions about what types of things they would like to do or see on their mobile devices in relation to their time here on campus.
These focus groups helped guide us to create a survey, which we have used to gather input directly from students.
This input helped us to start making plans on what we should do next to meet the needs of the students.
This is only the beginning, we hope to continue these efforts and develop even more student engagement components. Perhaps, involving them more in the design, testing, and more.