implementing and maintaining your university's mobile presence

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Playbook for Higher Education Playbook: Implementing and Maintaining Your University’s Mobile Strategy

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Our first Playbook, Improving Recruitment in the Mobile World, discussed how to build your mobile strategy by identifying your audiences, gaining internal support, and creating new content to keep your users engaged. To complete the process, this supplementary Playbook focuses on taking a deeper dive into some specific challenges and decisions that you will likely face throughout the development of your app.

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Page 1: Implementing and Maintaining Your University's Mobile Presence

Playbook for Higher Education

Playbook:Implementing and Maintaining

Your University’s Mobile Strategy

Page 2: Implementing and Maintaining Your University's Mobile Presence

1Implementing and Maintaining Your University’s Mobile StrategyBlackboard Mobiletm

So you’re ready to make the mobile move. Now it’s time to figure out how to effectively prepare for, launch, and

maintain that presence.

Our first Playbook, Improving Recruitment in the Mobile World, discussed how to build your mobile strategy by

identifying your audiences, gaining internal support, and creating new content to keep your users engaged.

To complete the process, this supplementary Playbook focuses on taking a deeper dive into some specific chal-

lenges and decisions that you will likely face throughout the development of your app.

INTRODUCTION

Some questions that will be answered:XX Should I build and manage our app internally, or

outsource it?

XX Who should project manage the implementation of

our app?

PREPARE

TO BUILD OR BUY? THAT IS THE QUESTION.Establishing the goals for your mobile strategy is important,

but so is figuring out how to present your content in the simple,

intuitive, speedy and bug-free interface that your users expect.

Developing and maintaining a high-performance mobile pres-

ence can be deceptively complex, so your team should assess

the available resources and decide whether to build your own

app in-house or partner with a third-party vendor.

Using internal resources gives you 100% control over the devel-

opment process and the finished product, but app some provid-

ers offer an out-of-the-box set of features and can make the

ongoing maintenance of your app much easier.

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XX What implications will the app have on the WiFi

bandwidth on our campus?

XX What is the best way to influence the adoption of

the app on and around campus?

XX How do I track the impact of our app?

By answering these questions, among others, this Playbook offers some practical guidelines for delivering an

engaging mobile experience that your constituents will appreciate.

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Here are some questions for your team to consider:

1. How quickly do you want to launch?The traditional higher educa-

tion development process can

be lengthy. If you have a short

time frame or user demand is

particularly high, third-party providers can offer turnkey

solutions that are completed within a few months.

2. How big is your budget?If you need to hire an employee to manage your app,

salaries for software designers, OS developers and soft-

ware engineers can range between $100,000-$150,000.

Most providers’ annual licensing fees amount to much

less than that salary.

3. Do you have the expertise and resources to create a mobile app?Mobile apps require multiple platforms, each with their

own operating system and functional requirements.

Assess whether your internal specialists can build an

app on multiple platforms in addition to their “usual”

responsibilities.

4. Can you handle ongoing service & maintenance?Even the most well-designed app

requires regular service, upgrades

and continuous performance and security monitoring.

As operating systems are updated, your app will require

modifications as well.

CHOOSE A PROJECT MANAGER As we mentioned earlier, maintaining a meaningful mobile presence does re-

quire regular attention. Choosing to build the app internally or to partner with

a vendor will dictate the amount of work, and level of skill, that is required from

your team. Either way, a project manager that embodies some of the following

skills will make the implementation of your app much easier.

An ideal project manager is:

XX An efficient interdepartment communicator. Pulling together the data

that you will need for your app requires a person who knows and under-

stands the university departments and can navigate through the politics.

XX Familiar with mobile technology, in general. For the purposes of test-

ing, your project manager should be familiar with mobile technology (and

have used apps before) in order to catch and report and bugs that need

to be addressed.

XX Comfortable with data. Sometimes changes need to be made to a particu-

lar data set, many times those changes can be made directly to the CSV file

or XML data. If your project manager is capable of making these changes, it

will expedite the process.

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LAUNCH

MARKETING YOUR APPAs your launch date approaches, be sure to build a Marketing plan to

drive the adoption of your app within the local community and beyond.

Finally A Chance To Use Those Guerilla TacticsGet creative with your on-campus advertising! High-profile

advertisements such as bus wraps, billboards, and elaborate

walkway art with QR codes will definitely get the attention of

your community, and easily convert to downloads. You could

also consider using student and faculty ambassadors to wear

your branded bags and t-shirts around town to spread the

word about your awesome new app.

ENSURE ADEQUATE BANDWIDTH AND SECURITY Existing students and faculty make up the majority of your user base. Special at-

tention is required to ensure easy and secure access to your network, as well as a

reliable user experience.

Students typically engage in bandwidth-intensive activities such as social network-

ing, video streaming, and multimedia for personal and academic needs. As a result,

IT leader CDW-G recommends:

XX Provide adequate wireless coverage. Mobile access

has become so commonplace that coverage of tradi-

tional hot spots like classrooms, libraries, dorms, cafete-

rias and student unions is no longer considered suffi-

cient. Wall-to-wall, campus-wide coverage is expected.

XX Coverage does not equal capacity. Even if you have

campus-wide coverage, bandwidth gets consumed

quickly; your network must be able to accommodate

high traffic volume. Additionally, there will be substantial

differences in user density between areas - for example,

a walkway through the quad and a dorm or a lecture

hall. If you are managing the network in-house, consoles

that provide real-time monitoring of devices and access

points lets you proactively balance loads during peak

use periods by labeling and prioritizing traffic.

XX Security. This is a big concern

for most IT departments. In light of

the increasing frequency of mobile-

related security threats (20% of mo-

bile users have experienced some

type of security threat, according to a Cloudmark

survey reported in USA today), CDW-G suggests dis-

cussing these precautions with your IT support team:

- Employ additional firewalls or use separate net-

works for confidential, mission-critical data

- Educate all users about security practices/network

policies

- Use virtualization and internal clouds for addition-

al protection

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Reach Prospective StudentsUniversities worldwide have

extended their brand reach

into multiple countries with

their mobile apps. How, you

ask? By leveraging modern

marketing channels, you

can spread the word about

your app far and wide.

Here are some tactics that

will get the attention of

users, no matter where they

are:

XX App Store Optimization (ASO). Similar to Search

Engine Optimization, ASO increases your ranking

and makes your app more discoverable in the App

Store. Choosing the right app name, keywords,

and description are crucial to making your way to

the top of their App Store searches.

XX Social Media Campaigns. We live in a digital world.

When students research potential universities,

they go to the sources that they know: Google,

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. By promoting

your app through all of these channels, you not

only increase app downloads, your brand remains

permanently in their pocket, and top of mind.

XX A good PR strategy. We all know that PR is crucial

to any institution, but in an age where your “value”

is ranked and published by third parties like US News and World Reports, it becomes even more

important to tout the innovation that’s taking place

on your campus. Publishing press releases and in-

terviews that highlight everything you’re doing with

your app on a regular basis will get the attention of

students and analysts worldwide.

Sustain the Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!After your initial launch, there are several ways to main-

tain interest and excitement about your app – both for

development stakeholders and users:

XX Run “teaser campaigns”. Teasers help to promote

future upgrades, improvements and added features

and functionality.

XX Be responsive. Incorporating user feedback and

promoting the implementation of suggested im-

provements keeps users coming back.

XX Run contests. For anything from new feature ideas

to design elements or slogans for the app, a little

competition gets people excited and involved with

the app.

MOBI LE M EDICAL MODULES ATTR ACT STUDENTS AND NATIONAL ATTENTION FOR GEORGIA SCHOOL

Georgia Regents University (GRU) created a suite of highly specialized medical modules within their app. With everything from a medical abbreviation dictionary to a complex medical calculator, GRU is making their students’ everyday lives much easier and more effecient. In addition to making life easier for students, the customized modules have become a valuable recruiting tool. And through a variety of high profile marketing efforts, GRU Mobile brought national recognition to the University as an academic health innovator.

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1. Focusing on a smaller feature set allows you to bring

your app “to market” faster.

2. A narrower scope during development allows you to

pay attention to the details of your initial feature set,

resulting in better quality and higher user satisfaction.

3. By publicizing your future plans, users have more to

look forward to. As long as additional features and

functions are made available within a reasonable

time frame, they can be part of a successful ongoing

marketing campaign.

Metrics — What Gets Measured Gets ImprovedSetting up metrics to monitor app use and performance

is an essential part of maintaining a dynamic and pro-

ductive mobile presence. There are certain generic key

performance indicators (KPIs) that apply to any mobile

app, such as:

XX Number of downloads

XX Number of active users

XX Geographic location of users

XX Features of highest use

XX Seasonal changes in feature usage

Through qualitative research with

user groups and surveys, you can

also determine how your app im-

pacts the perception of your uni-

versity, acceptance rates to the

university, student satisfaction, and

even graduation rates.

These items only scratch the surface of what you can

discover with the appropriate analytics. The more you

can track, the more opportunities you have to uncover

trends, user needs, and which components are working

(or not). All of these data points enable you to make

improvements to your app and ultimately raise user sat-

isfaction and engagement over time.

TRACK, LEARN, TWEAKOne of the most important concepts to grasp when it comes to mobile develop-

ment is that the space is constantly evolving and, as a result, requires an intention-

ally flexible strategy. By regularly tracking usage and making decisions based on

that data, you can continuously optimize and improve your users’ experience.

Phased Deployment: One Step At a TimeIn most cases it’s not realistic to launch all of the desired functionality at once.

Many schools will roll out the first phase of their app with the features to satisfy

the immediate needs of their users and build from that point. There are several

advantages to this approach:

MAINTAIN

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“Mix things up” to keep users interestedBy rotating contributors, fresh content keeps users

coming back to see what’s new:

XX Seasonal content for back to

school, parents weekend,

graduation, and holidays

means that there is always

something new and useful

for your users to find

XX Are athletics important at

your school? Mix up your design elements during

different sports seasons to help promote support

for your team.

XX Create dynamic YouTube channels that feature new

videos every week. They could address important

issues on campus and in the community, or even

showcase interviews of various teachers, students

and athletes..

XX Have a big anniversary coming up? Dedicate a mod-

ule to your history to foster school spirit and recon-

nect with alumni.

Do You Need Additional “App-centric” Assets?Keep in mind that while it

is perfectly acceptable to

repurpose existing mate-

rials, some content was developed for the desktop and

therefore does not always make sense in mobile envi-

ronment where you have significantly less screen real

estate. This new paradigm gives you the opportunity to

introduce new ways to capture users’ interest, leverag-

ing mobile-specific features like the camera, compass,

and accelerometer of the device.

Loyola Marymount University’s mobile app incorporates

LMU Live, which streams comments and images upload-

ed by students and faculty onto large screen monitors

in the on-campus Welcome Center. This interactive feed

is curated and moderated by students and has created

a dynamic, interactive community for LMU supporters.

LMU Live has proven to be a unique channel to reach

prospective students and, as part of an integrated out-

reach campaign, has helped boost application rates by

10%.

Remember, students are used to having everything right

at their fingertips, so the more useful (i.e., indispensible)

you can make your app for navigating their day-to-day

lives on campus, the better.

KEEP USERS COMING BACKSome streaming elements, like news feeds and transportation schedules, will automatically update. However, it’s

just as important to keep all other services and postings as timely as possible. The Pew Research Center’s Internet

& American Life Project found that 68% of Smartphone owners use only five or fewer apps on a regular basis. By

keeping your information fresh and relevant, your app is more likely to be among that exclusive “most used” group.

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BLACKBOARD CAN HELP

Taking the first steps toward developing and launching your mobile app can seem daunting. Mobile technology

continues to evolve with breathtaking speed, and there are seemingly limitless variations and options when it comes

to choosing features and capabilities.

No matter which approach and details are most appropriate for your school, we can offer the expertise and insight

that has been developed from helping hundreds of institutions launch their mobile initiatives. If you have additional

questions that have not been addressed in this Mobile Playbook Series, please contact us at bit.ly/bbmobile-contact.

About Blackboard MobileBlackboard Mobile, a division of Blackboard Inc., is dedicated to providing innovative mobile solutions to educational

institutions around the world. Blackboard Mobile has partnered with hundreds of institutions to enrich teaching, learn-

ing, and life outside the classroom. Based in San Francisco, the Blackboard Mobile team currently delivers two mobile

solutions: Blackboard Mobile Learn, bringing interactive teaching and learning to mobile devices, and Blackboard Mobile

Central, providing on-demand access to essential campus information.