Mobile Application Development

The day is coming when users will be able to access the full range of enterprise-wide resources and conduct all enterprise transactions from a smartphone or other mobile device, and institutions need to plan now for this transition. Portals, security, reporting environments, and other structures need to be in place to make the mobile environment reliable, accessible, available, scalable, and secure. Explore this resource site—a collection of all EDUCAUSE resources related to mobile application development.

Articles, Papers, and Reports

• 7 Things You Should Know About Mobile App Development, EDUCAUSE, April 2011. The mobile landscape fundamentally changes the role institutional IT plays in app development, and policies and culture will determine how the growing, fluid ecosystem of mobile apps works together (or does not), which ones will be institutionally supported (centrally or otherwise), and how much integration is feasible.
• Mobile Perspectives: On Websites—Mobile Matters: Communication Trumps Technology. EDUCAUSE Review, March/April 2011. "Mobile is the future for content delivery. Colleges and universities need to establish a strategy now and make the decisions necessary to take advantage of this communication opportunity."
• Mobile Perspectives: On Devices—Mobile: Letting Go of the Device and Building for Innovation. EDUCAUSE Review, March/April 2011.
• Mobile Ramblings, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, March 2011. The author discusses ways people are using App Inventor for Android.
• Creating a Mobile Community of App Developers. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, March 2011. The University of Michigan mobile team developed a strategy to create a widespread community of mobile developers and leverage the power of crowdsourcing.
• Loyola University Chicago: There’s an App for That. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, March 2011. Loyola University Chicago deployed a single mobile application, which serves as the foundation on which it can expand mobile learning and mobile campus capabilities.
• Going Mobile with a Web-Based Strategy. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, March 2011. This article discusses UCLA's assessment of the mobile strategic approaches in the fall of 2009 and the university's subsequent decision to focus on the creation of a mobile web strategy around a new homegrown Mobile Web Framework, UCLA MWF.
• 7 Things You Should Know About Android. ELI 7 Things, December 2010. Android has been selected by many hardware manufacturers to run on a wide range of devices, including cell phones, tablets, e-readers, netbooks, and others. Android may bring smartphone and tablet functionality to a much wider cross-section of students and faculty members.
• Universities and Libraries Move to the Mobile Web. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, June 2010.
• The Revolution No One Noticed: Mobile Phones and Multimobile Services in Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, March 2009.

Presentations and Seminars

• Mobile Enterprise Integration at Bucknell and the University of Mississippi. EDUCAUSE Live!, This EDUCAUSE webinar was part of the 5 day Sprint o Mobile Computing held April 27, 2011.
• Spotlight on Mobile Computing: Stories of Mobile Learning. EDUCAUSE Live!, January 2011. The University of Maryland is in its third year of a mobility initiative that has encompassed everything from student recruitment to app development to class projects. This session details the experiences of faculty and students when using mobile devices for teaching and learning. Specific focus is given to “Digital Cultures and Creativity” and “Information 3.0,” two dynamic programs that incorporate the iPad and iPod touch with other technologies to engage students in learning.
• Expert Discussion Session: Mobile Applications and Device Support: Are Your Applications Mobile Ready? EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, October 2010. This session recording discusses whether schools are support-ready for student mobile devices. Which applications should become mobile-ready? Are there plans in place to rapidly deploy mobile-ready applications? What challenges do mobile devices create for protecting sensitive institutional information?
• Creating Tools for the Mobile Campus. EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, October 2010. This session recording discusses how the North Carolina State University Libraries mobile site offers a model for providing engaging, targeted services to students' mobile devices. This session offers suggestions for planning, developing, and implementing a mobile strategy, including applications and web-based services.
• MOCA: It's Not Just Chocolate Anymore. ELI, March 2010. This focus session recording describes how the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment at the University of Texas at Austin developed multiple mobile courseware applications over the past year. The first was the creation of the Mobile Ongoing Course Assessment (MOCA) application, a real-time, interactive polling application for use in the classroom. Built by leveraging the infrastructure of an existing survey system, MOCA was optimized for mobile interfaces.
• Student iPhone App. Development and Institutional IT: The Story So Far. ELI, March 2010. In fall 2009, staff from the University Of Florida Office of Academic Technology stumbled upon an undergraduate student developing an iPhone application he called UF Mobile. This application had a small number of features based on publicly available information such as a campus map, campus RSS news feeds, student-life activities, and the UF academic calendar. Upon consideration, we realized we wanted to both encourage the student while bringing him “into the fold” to protect institutional interests and leverage the creativity and work being done to benefit the university.
• Low-Effort, High-Impact Mobile Development: Designing a Mobile Website with iUI. ELI, March 2010. This session gives a brief tour of the UNC Libraries mobile website, which was built with iUI, followed by an introduction on how to use iUI in developing your own mobile site.

June 2011