developing a mobile-first strategy across your...
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Developing a mobile-first strategy across your campusToday’s evolving mobile technologies, coupled with students who often carry and use multiple mobile devices, calls for a flexible, affordable mobile management strategy. Develop a manageable mobile strategy that delivers a consistent user experience across platforms, and leverages data you already have — without extra expense and constant support from your IT staff.
A Campus Technology White Paper
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Executive Summary
Delivering on student expectations for mobile access is one of IT’s top challenges in
higher education. Students move among smartphones, tablets and iPads, using a wide
range of apps and platforms to register for classes, communicate with classmates,
look up courses and sports schedules, check social media, and more. They bring high
expectations of anywhere, anytime computing built on years of using mobile devices.
Attracting students to your campus means offering the computing capabilities they
expect, but doing so can take huge bites out of your scarce IT resources.
Vendor solutions also can have drawbacks. Some are not customizable; others focus
only on the learning management system, leaving a disconnect to wide-reaching
platforms with rich data sets, like the institution’s ERP, and neglecting the needs of
additional sectors of the campus community such as faculty and alumni. Tackling the
integration challenges using in-house staff is risky. In-house solutions may not address
security effectively, leaving personal data exposed as it travels between systems or
resides on mobile devices.
For most institutions, the overriding issue in all of this is simply the lack of a long-term
strategy to support mobile use. Technology changes too fast; a huge variety of devices
have flooded the campus in just a few years. The result has been stop-gap measures
that are expensive, overlapping, and lack any plan for the future. Institutions are, after
all, in the business of educating students, not managing mobile apps.
It’s time to step back, take a breath, and look at a cost-effective, over-arching platform
for managing the mobile experience on your campus over the long term.
Addressing Four Big Challenges in Mobile Device Use
If your IT department is overwhelmed by serving students who need constant, instant
access to apps and data via their mobile devices, you’re not alone. The explosion in
mobile device use on campus is universal. Colleges and universities are struggling to
meet the onslaught, sometimes making rash short-term decisions to manage mobility
and help students access the apps they need and want.
Here are four of the biggest challenges in mobile device use on campus today – and
an affordable, long-term solution from Ellucian, the leading software and services
provider for higher education institutions.
One: Are your mobile solutions short-term?
The Challenge: If you’re like many institutions, even as the number of computing
devices on campus has mushroomed, your budget has been static or shrinking. That
has forced colleges to scramble to meet mobile needs, often turning to students or
faculty members for quick, low-cost help. However, in-house-created mobile apps have
Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Addressing Four Big Challenges in Mobile Device Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
One: Are your mobile solutions short-term? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Two: Are you confident in the security of your mobile apps? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Three: Are your apps flexible and customizable for your institution? . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Four: Do you have a long-term mobile strategy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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serious drawbacks. Short-term savings are usually lost over time as the code falls out
of date, students who developed the app graduate or move on, and the software no
longer works with the complex and rapidly changing platforms they link to.
Offerings from third-party developers can also have shortcomings – keeping up with
today’s enterprise platforms for higher education requires almost constant updates.
And while larger platforms such as your LMS might come with their own mobile
access apps, they are limited by definition -- they focus on students alone rather than
the broader campus community. That means you aren’t making good use of valuable
data already stored in broader administrative systems that form the hub of your
campus data. Equally important, you aren’t meeting the mobile expectations of your
broader campus community.
The Solution: Instead of fractured and piecemeal measures, a far better solution for
delivering a consistent, branded mobile experience to all of your users is a strategy
that leapfrogs limited in-house and software-specific apps to reach across platforms
and constituents, directly integrating with the ERP database to serve the right
information to students, faculty, alumni, staff and administrators.
Ellucian Mobile, a mobile offering from higher education leader Ellucian, offers
that strategy, with affordable pricing designed to fit the tough constraints of your
technology budget and move you out of the cycle of paying for constant software
updates.
Another benefit of a solid long-term mobile strategy is a predictable line item in the
budget and lower costs over time, without sudden spending needs. No more worries
about apps that suddenly fail to function as your core campus systems evolve. Ellucian
takes care of all the frequent updates needed to keep pace with each platform.
Two: Are you confident in the security of your mobile apps?
The Challenge: Data security breaches on college campuses are embarrassingly
frequent, often because institutions are amateurish in their approach to overall
security. Although laws such as HIPAA and FERPA mandate the security of student
data, studies show that colleges and universities are attacked more often than other
sectors, in part because of a general philosophy of openness in higher education, and
in part because of a lack of focus on security.
Mobile apps, because of the connections they make with other institutional platforms
teeming with student data, are highly vulnerable and need to be created and
maintained with a professional approach to data security. Unfortunately, mobile
apps written in-house often don’t follow best practices in security, and may fail to
properly secure data as it moves between systems or resides on the mobile device
itself. Third-party integrators, in turn, may not understand education-specific security
requirements, and are seldom experts in security in general.
Ellucian Mobile is a widely adopted mobile
app for higher education that easily integrates
with existing IT platforms and strategies, while
offering instant connectivity with the power and
services in Ellucian’s three core administrative
systems: Banner by Ellucian, Colleague by
Ellucian, and PowerCampus by Ellucian.
Its framework supports native and web
applications, and it comes in two editions, so
you can choose the product that best meets
your mobile needs.
• Ellucian Application Edition offers the
ability to create and release an application
within hours, without writing any code. It’s
typically the choice of smaller institutions
that lack extensive IT departments to
customize code. This easily configurable
pre-set package of applications can be fully
launched in just hours. Since it’s managed
and maintained by Ellucian, internal staff
can focus elsewhere.
• For more flexibility and control, Ellucian
Platform Edition allows you to build a fully
customized mobile environment. It comes
with the underlying code, so it’s a good
fit for larger institutions that have the on-
staff expertise to customize the mobile
environment more fully.
With either edition, you can customize screens
for different departments, colleges and
campuses, while retaining a universal look and
feel. Users access the mobile apps they most
need and want through a universal entry point.
Both options include deep integration with
the data and services in Ellucian’s core ERP
systems.
Ellucian is a long-time leader in higher
education – its mobile solution is the most
widely adopted in the world.
Extending the Digital Campus with Ellucian Mobile
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The Solution: Ellucian Mobile software is natively linked to Ellucian’s administrative
software out of the box, ensuring that professional levels of security are maintained.
The platform securely handles highly sensitive data exchanges such as registration,
two-way transfers, wait-listing, and course add-drop. When the underlying platforms
that the app is linked to change, Ellucian takes care of any necessary changes to the
code. There’s no last-minute software alterations that can lead to security lapses. And
with Ellucian Mobile, data stays securely in sync with the underlying platforms or apps
it links to.
Three: Are your apps flexible and customizable for your institution?
The Challenge: Not only is writing your own mobile app complex and time-
consuming, it also restricts software customizations to the code authors. Altering an
app can take additional expertise, time and money. If you have a number of campuses
or colleges that you want to unite under a single identity – while giving an individual
look and feel to each campus – that means separate mobile software must be written
and updated for each campus. Lacking an overall strategy, each app ends up with a
different look and feel. Also, supporting various popular platforms and apps used by
students means choosing which ones to integrate with, and when to support native or
web applications.
The Solution: Delivered as a platform that supports both native and web
applications, Ellucian Mobile is easy to customize. Design options in the cloud-based
configuration system make it easy to customize the look and feel. The core mobile app
can have a specific look for each campus, with customized portals that connect the
various departments, campuses, and colleges within your institution, while delivering
consistent navigation across all apps.
With or without customization, Ellucian Mobile’s professionally designed interface
makes it easy for students to find the information they want. It also lets you easily
customize the look and feel to deliver the next-generation functionality students
expect.
Web plug-ins are a snap, even for non-technical staff. You can deliver in-demand apps
like course registration with confidence, knowing that Ellucian keeps mobile in synch
with its administrative systems. With native integration, there’s no scramble to find
developers, write new code, and get the app tested and working again, and no users
or devices that are suddenly unable to connect.
The intuitive interface ensures you can go live with the app within a few hours. Most
support and management can be done without coding knowledge, freeing up IT for
other tasks.
Ellucian Mobile includes all the functionality
you’ll need right out of the box, without
additional coding or third-party middleware.
Students can:
• View courses, including class rosters,
assignments, maps and directions, and
events
• Register for classes, including add-drop
and wait-listing functions
• View grades as soon as they are entered by
the instructor
• Connect to the campus bookstore to order
and pay for books
• Receive notices when bookstore items are
ready for pickup
• Integrate with the campus directory to find
other students as well as faculty and staff
• Access social media, news sites, mapping,
and other apps
• Receive notifications of activities and
events
With the right permissions, staff and
administrators can also use Ellucian Mobile to
securely:
• Access records in the ERP system including
academic, financial aid, human resources
and admissions
• Access Google Analytics to view charts and
graphs on data in your core administrative
and LMS systems
Functionality in Ellucian Mobile
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Four: Do you have a long-term mobile strategy?
The Challenge: Finding the time to form a strategic, forward-looking strategy is likely
the biggest mobile challenge you face. Higher education institutions need to get out of
the business of supporting the rapidly changing world of mobile, and instead develop
a plan for long-term stability, growth and support in how content is presented on
mobile devices at their institution.
The Solution: Ellucian, a familiar and trusted partner in higher education for many
years for its core enterprise administrative software, now offers an affordable and
flexible solution for managing the mobile experience on your campus. Ellucian Mobile
supports many languages and is already in use at more than 900 schools in 20
countries around the world. Realistically priced, secure, and easily customizable,
it offers a long-term strategy that relieves the burden on IT and sets out a mobile
roadmap for the long term.
Ellucian Mobile works with the mobile devices students are bringing to your campus
most, including iOS and Android operating systems. It comes with instant, native
integration with Colleague by Ellucian, Banner by Ellucian, and PowerCampus by
Ellucian, and can seamlessly and securely integrate with existing software suites like
your LMS. Ellucian’s long-term roadmap for its mobile solution is built on the feedback
of higher education institutions that have detailed their current and future mobile
campus needs.
Ellucian4375 Fair Lakes CourtFairfax, VA 22033
(800) 223-7036
About Campus Technology
Campus Technology is one of higher education’s top information sources—delivering valuable information via a monthly magazine, website, newsletters, webinars, online tools and in-person events. It’s the go-to resource for campus professionals—providing in-depth coverage on the technologies and implementations influencing colleges and universities across the nation. You’ll discover valuable how-to content, best practices, industry trends, expert advice and insightful articles to help administrators, campus executives, technologists and educators plan, develop and successfully launch effective IT initiatives. Our annual conferences showcase expert speakers, thought leaders and technology solution experts exchanging ideas on the latest technological innovations in use on campuses worldwide—offering campus technology professionals opportunities to collaborate, network and gain valuable information that helps them succeed.
To learn more, visit www .campustechnology .com
About Ellucian
Ellucian helps education institutions thrive in an open and dynamic world. We deliver a broad portfolio of technology solutions, developed in collaboration with a global education community, and provide strategic guidance to help education institutions of all kinds navigate change, achieve greater transparency, and drive efficiencies. More than 2,400 institutions in 40 countries around the world look to Ellucian for the ideas and insights that will move education forward, helping people everywhere discover their futures through learning. Visit Ellucian at www.ellucian.com, follow Ellucian on Twitter (@EllucianInc), and like Ellucian on Facebook (/EllucianInc).
To learn more, visit www .ellucian .com .
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(818) 814-5277
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