Modo Labs and other Mobile Vendors

At ERAU, we have been working with At&t Campus Guide and DubLabs, they were not the only vendor we looked at.  We explored a few before deciding which partner to choose.  We have found it a very interesting exercise and beneficial.  Some items to consider based on what we learned:

·         Use the crawl, walk, run approach.  Don’t try to get all aspects in at once.  Identify those features your students use daily/frequently and deploy those first.  You can always add features later.

·         Talk to your students and see what they want, it may not be what you think they want.

·         Look carefully at the technology base, is it sustainable, secure and easy to manage going forward….

o   Changing and adding RSS feeds

o   Adding new features

o   Addressing the inevitable changes in your feeder systems (SIS, LMS, HR etc.)

o   Integration with the SIS and LMS; security, overhead on system and ease of testing

·         I recommend finding a vendor that can address/handle different mobile devices

·         Find a vendor willing to understand your needs and update accordingly.  Understand how they accomplish that, do they provide you a toolkit, do they create one-off customizations or do they embed new features/functions in the core product.  Our preference is to avoid customizations… J

·         Explore the costs, not just the initial costs but ongoing costs including support.  Based on what we reviewed, the options vary a lot.  FYI – we do not charge our students for the app.

We have had a great experience with our mobile implementation, I would be happy to discuss details off-line