Robin Honken
Kenneth Janz
ABSTRACT
With the number of students owning smart phones increasing to over fifty percent in 2010 at Winona State University, Information Technology Services collaborated with University Marketing and Communications to develop Winona State Mobile http://www.winona.edu/it/winonastatemobile.asp. This paper details the initial development efforts to the mobile development strategy that allowed for Winona State Mobile to be accessed from most mobile devices, and prepare the way for future mobile development efforts. The initial WSU Mobile application was developed with the following features: campus map, WSU bus tracker, virtual tour, WSU news, Faculty and staff directory, and the academic calendar. During the construction of this first application the programming team changed the development strategy along the way, resulting in our most recent version being quite different than the initial release. In addition, while working on an update to WSU Mobile, the mobile development team was also working with the Winona Historical Society on a virtual walking tour of some historical buildings in downtown Winona. Both of these efforts have helped shape the way we approach mobile development. This paper will provide an account of these development efforts, reasons for the change in strategy, and a demonstration the end products. Finally, this paper will discuss our most recent effort, which will be available in the summer 2012: The Winona State University Augmented Reality Tree Tour.
We are confident that our current applications have been very successful based on qualitative as well as quantitative data. We have had well over 50,000 hits on WSU Mobile since October 2011. The bus-tracking application alone has had almost 30,000 hits during that same time frame. Our team would like to share the knowledge we've gained with other institutions looking to increase their visibility among prospective students, and provide pertinent information to current students in a medium that is easily and quickly accessible to them.
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Index Terms
- Building a sustainable mobile device strategy to meet the needs of various stakeholder groups
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