Developing a mobile-first strategy across your campus

Transcription

1 Developing a mobile-first strategy across your campus Today 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 Sponsored By:

2 Table of Contents Executive Summary 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? Four: Do you have a long-term mobile strategy?... 5 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 2

3 Extending the Digital Campus with Ellucian Mobile 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 onstaff 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. 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. 3

4 Functionality in Ellucian Mobile 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 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 timeconsuming, 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. 4

5 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. 5

6 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 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 follow Ellucian on Twitter (@EllucianInc), and like Ellucian on Facebook (/EllucianInc). To learn more, visit Ellucian 4375 Fair Lakes Court Fairfax, VA (800) Oakdale Ave. Suite 101 Chatsworth, CA (818)