User Group

CiCS User Group today - a chance for us to tell people what we're up to, and get some feedback. I
kicked off with the results of our survey of staff, and what we're doing about what people told us. we've picked eight themes to concentrate on, and you can see them and our action plans here.

We also showed our users what our new mobile apps for accessing our HR and finance system (SAP) will look like.  The interface into the desktop versions of some parts of these systems are complex, but these apps which are especially designed for mobile devices will be much simpler to use. You'll be able to book and approve leave, view your payslip, approve expenses, and eventually many more things, from your smart phone or tablet. We've been piloting them for some time, and we're just waiting for some bugs to be fixed before releasing them.

A rather exciting pilot we're just about to start is the use of iBeacons, (little bluetooth devices) in conjunction with our iSheffield mobile app to do student attendance monitoring in teaching space. The way it works is that as a student enters a teaching space, the iBeacon triggers the app on the student's phone to check if the student has a class running in there. If they do, their attendance is registered.
Ombiel have released an information paper which you can read here.

Another new development is the linking of our lecture capture system to the timetabling system, so we'll be able to record many more lectures. Lots of information about our lecture capture system here.

Finally,  we introduced our user group to the concept of Agile project management which we're now using for all projects where it's appropriate. More information on our projects page.

New students, space and data

So, the campus is buzzing this week as the new students arrive back. We had staff up at the student residences all weekend, mainly helping them connect to the newly installed wireless network. Many had completed all of the pre-registration information which gave them a computer account, but those who hadn't were able to do that as soon as they arrived.  It was very interesting that many of them who had completed all of their pre-arrival information, and had been given a username and email address, couldn't use them, as they couldn't remember what password they had created!  This was despite making it more obvious that this password was actually important to them once they got to University. Perhaps next year we should just suggest they use their Facebook password :-)

Now it's Fresher's Week, new students are finalising their module choices, picking up their uCards, and finding their way round campus. Helping them to do that is our newly re-branded mobile app, iSheffield, available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and as a web app. It's got some great location features, including finding the nearest free open access PC.

As well as keeping an eye on what's happening with registration, this week so far I've had a couple of catch up meetings, and the inaugural meeting of the the Learning Infrastructure Group. This is a small, focused group, chaired by a PVC, and with the Directors of Student Services and Estates, myself, 2 academic heads of department, a project support officer.  Its remit is to provide a strategic steer to a number of projects which have an impact on teaching space, including the common timetabling project, teaching space refurbishments, and many projects looking at data which utlimately affect the way we handle process such as timetabling.  I'm not sure anyone understood the complex interactions of these projects, until they tried to study the diagram below!

Later today I'm off to London to a Gartner conference on Portals, Content and Collaboration, so will try and blog as many interesting sessions as I can. As usual, this will take the form of live blogs, so most will be in note form.

Mobile and Google, our contributions to UCISA 2011

We've been involved in a couple of presentations here at UCISA. Last year we won the poster competition for our CampusM poster, so as a consequence we got invited to do a showcase session. Although it was mainly about our implementation about CampusM, I also shared some of the results of our mobile survey.

Some quick figures:
99.6% of our students have a mobile phone, and 56% of them have a smart phone. 25% are going to upgrade to a smart phone within the next year.
Around 50% of the smart phone owners connect to the wireless network. The rest either don't because they don't know about it, don't know how to, or have tried and can't.
IPhone and blackberry make up around 50% of all smart phones.
25% of students use CampusM, 25% know about it but don't use it, and 50% have never heard of it.
The top five things students like about it are:
Library information
Calendar
PC Availability
Locations
Friend locator

The top five things they don't like are
Library information
Friend locator
Calendar
Design
Speed

Notice any similarity? 3 appear on both lists, and the comments show that is because they like the functionality, but there's something wrong or missing. So, friends don't log in to the finder, you can't reserve a library book, or the data in the calendars is wrong.

When asked what new functionality they wanted, it was nearly all transactional - they want to reserve a book, book a PC or room. Also to see financial information and see their exam results.

Some other headlines, 96% of students have a laptop, and 70% connect them to our wireless network. The rest have problems connecting, but a substantial proportion don't bring their laptops onto campus. 80% of laptops run windows, 12% mac and the rest Linux.

Lots of interest in CampusM, who had produced an app for the conference which people could access on iPads loaned to them by Apple. A previous session had been on the Oxford Mobile project, which is not an app, but web based, and it was interesting to compare the different approaches.

The other presentation was a joint one with Google as part of their business showcase, and was about our implementation for google apps. Many universities doing it for students, but not many doing it for staff. We explained how we made the decision, some issues with implementation, although there haven't been many, and what we're doing next. Staff mail is n the middle of being moved, Google docs will be turned on in May, and then calendar will hopefully go live when we've moved all the data, hopefully June. A lot of interest in what we're doing, with predictable questions about data storage and security.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Timetabling as a change management project

One of the good things about attending conferences  is finding out how other colleagues have approached projects which are similar to ones we are involved in, often in different ways. Yesterday I attended a session on how UCL had approached their Common Timetabling project, which is very timely, as we have just completed a pilot in our own such project, and have encountered a number of problem. UCL had similar reasons for doing it - to facilitate interdisciplinary study, to provide better timetabling information to students, to use teaching spaces more efficiently and to make more efficient use of modules and resources.  Their timetabling is decentralised, with each department producing its own timetables, and they decided to leave it that way.  In order to facilitate common timetabling they decided to introduce a block structure, with mornings divided into different blocks and streams for lectures, and lab classes etc in blocks in the afternoons. There were some issues with this, and initial pilots weren't totally successful, and some departments refused to cooperate. However, what is important, is that UCL approached this as a massive change management process, with a long timescale of 3 years, a lot of work on risk management, and a lot of resource put into it. Change managers were recruited and a lot of effort was put into "readiness assessments", as well as using dedicated staff and temps for data hygiene. Sobering really, and has led me to consider our own project, and whether we need to allocate more resources to it. Think the answer might be yes!

Following on from this session was one from LSE about how they've implemented CampusM, the mobile app for students. I've given a similar talk so many times about we did it, it made a pleasant change to listen to someone else. They've done it in a very similar way to us, but with some different data and features. They've also branded it LSE Mobile.

Mobile apps and iPads

Meeting this morning to look at our mobile strategy - especially in relation to our mobile app, CampusM. We want to capitalise on it as much as we can, and that involves getting a lot more data into it, and being strategic about what additional functionality we want. We also need to closely tie it in with the development and implementation of our new portal, and look at how it might integrate with the mobile functionality of our new VLE. Next week we're meeting with a number of representatives from departments including the Student Union, the Library and our student information centre to discuss with them how we might increase the amount of information available to our students.

The iPhone/iPodTouch version has been really popular, and we're about to release the Blackberry version. Then the web version will be available for all other phones, so we should reach all students with a smart phone. At the moment we're not sure how many have them, or what kind, so we will be carrying out a survey soon.

Then a bit of excitement in the department as our iPads arrived. We've ordered a few to test things out - how they synch with our services for example, and what we can deliver to them. I'm particularly interested in how we might use them in meetings. If we can get our documents onto them, and annotate them, they might be more popular than laptops. Not as heavy or bulky, and without the perceived barrier that a laptop creates. Think we'll have to wait a couple of weeks for iOS4 for the annotation/notes facility, but I'm hopeful that we shoud be able to use them to reduce the amount of printing we do.

Networking

At the end of last week following the UCISA meeting I went to the RUGIT awayday - tortuous travel arrangements between Manchester and Warwick meant that I missed the first couple of hours, but got there in time to hear an extremely good presentation and question and answer session with the Registrar from the University of Warwick. Of course, we concentrated a lot on the financial pressures facing Universities at the moment, and looking at how we are going to have to work together to get through them. Two points I thought were particularly well made were -
- we mustn't allow the government to divide and rule us,
- we have to get involved in the debate and not let others set our future vision and direction.

Other sessions over the two days included a presentation on CampusM (from me - getting good at it now!), the future of desktop computing and the benefits of a centralised IT service as compared to a devolved one. Lots of good discussion, and as always at these events, a lot of very useful networking.

Today, some of us visited the University of York to discuss our approach to collaborative software with them. In particular they were interested in the implementation of our collaboration environment uSpace (based on Jive SBS software). Lots of interesting questions - most of which we knew the answer to. And I even got to do my CampusM presentation again! Again, excellent networking and exchange of ideas.

Mobile campus

In London at the moment for two events. First is the Apple Leadership Event, where yesterday I gave a joint presentation with oMbiel about campusM - our mobile application. The talk was so popular we had to deliver it three times, so it was pretty tiring! But it was very well received and we had lots of questions - especially about future developments of the application - could we use it to deliver learning materials from the VLE for example? Some of the international delegates were concerned about the cost of running the app for students because of very high data costs from ISPs and telecommunications providers. I was amazed at some of the charges being levied - I think Belgium was probably the dearest - and am grateful for the fact that we can make good use of networks for relatively little cost over here.

When I put the slides for the talk together on Monday we had 500 downloads - by the time I gave the talk yesterday afternoon we'd had 900! The extra publicity given to it by featuring on the University home page for the last few days had obviously had an effect. The split between iPhone and iPod touch users is about 70% iPhone, 30% iPod touch. Surprising number of iPod touches - and that sort of device never features in our surveys of what students have and yet they're obviously using them to access our services via wireless.

In the next few week we'll be releasing the app for use on other phones - I saw it working on a relatively cheap simple Nokia yesterday and it was surprisingly good.

Now I'm off to BETT2010, so will blog about that later.

CampusM launch

Sorry for lack of posts - been away for a few days. Back today with a trip to London to the Apple HQ above their store on Regent St for the launch of CampusM. I've blogged about this mobile app before, and I was presenting a case study on our experience of the implementation so far. There were representatives there from oMbiel, the company who are developing the application who gave an overview of the product and some future developments.

I've been asked a lot of questions about this, including why did we decide to implement CampusM, why didn't we do it ourselves as webapps, how much effort did it take on our part, and what issues have we had. These were all things I covered in today's talk, so in summary.....

Why - well it fits with our strategy of delivering services in a way that suits the user, rather than one that suits us. Our last survey showed that about 15% of students had smart phones, and that number is steadily rising, so we will be getting information to students in a way that is familiar to them. Because it's based on Service Orientated Architecture and open standards it enables us to reuse functionality. We've had a student portal since 2003 and some of the development work has been reused in CampusM, and we will also be able to use the functionality in CampusM to plug back into our student portal. The other major factor is one of resources - we just haven't got the development resource to do this ourselves - we have too much else on. oMbiel are specialists in this sort of work, having a history of being systems integrators and are much better placed to do it. One other factor - it was a low risk project. At relatively little cost, we didn't tell anyone we were doing it until we had a working system, if it had all failed, nothing else was riding on it.

Why didn't we develop it ourselves as web apps is partly answered above - we could have done, but we just don't have the resource. This was done in a matter of weeks - it would have taken us much longer. Plus, we now have an application that has everything in one menu - pulling in information from many different sources but it is seamless to the user and they don't have to go to lots of different web apps to get it. The application makes a lot of use of location services, and its integration with other apps on the iPhone such as Google maps is something that would have taken us more than a few weeks to do. In addition, oMbiel are doing all the work in optimising it for viewing on different types of phone with different operating systems and browsers. It's a pragmatic approach - I'm into rapid development and deployment at the moment, and if someone can do it quicker than we can we should let them do it.

In terms of effort on our part - very little. We supplied the expertise on where the data was held and database views. We had a project manager at both ends, and ours liaised with different data owners and handled testing and rollout issues. oMbiel did almost everything else.

As for issues - there's not been many. A certain initial cynicism of whether this would work, decisions on what functionality to deliver initially and what not to, some difficulties with testing because we needed live student data (solved by getting a group of students to pilot it for us).

So, we now have a working application which should be available from the iTunes store in about 4 weeks, and we're using that time to get more data into it. By the end of the year it will be available on many more smart phones.

The location based features are for me the most impressive. Take something simple like PC availability - we can show students where PCs are free on a campus map or on Google maps, or they can locate the nearest free PC to where they happen to be. We're going to add more things like printers, value loaders etc to it. Just imagine the potential - someone suggested free car parking spaces! If only we had the data we could do it.

So - what next? Well, we will be oMbiel are developing an application targeted at staff, and we know from our limited testing with staff that they're very keen on having something similar, especially for the directory features. They're also looking at a version for visitors to campus such as on open days where I can imagine the location based features such as campus maps will be very useful. there's also talk of a version for prospective students and alumni - we'll have to take a decision on how far we want to go!

Smarter phones

Yesterday was our User Group, and I was able to report that our migration of student email accounts to Google had gone really well - and today Google announced it in a press release. Nice to get some good publicity. We had a very good discussion on the use of web 2.0 technologies in teaching and learning and how we will be supporting and facilitating them in the future.

As part of our commitment to providing applications to mobile devices, we gave a demo of our CampusM application which will be launched to students in the next couple of weeks for the iPhone, and then later to other smart phones.

It has some very nice features, including a directory linked to our University phone and email system, and friend locator (so that you can see where your friends are and meet up with them), news and event feeds, and course details.

It also has a powerful location application linked to GPS and Google maps. We are using it to show our student computing rooms - their location on the campus map and on Google maps and how many PCs are free. Exam venues are also listed, as well as all other buildings on campus. Over time we'll be adding a lot more functionality to this.

There's also information drawn from other systems including the Library so that students can see what books they've got out, their reservations and fines! Eventually they'll be able to extend loans and carry our other transactions. Other features include personal lecture and exam timetables.

We're impressed so far, and will be interested to see what the students think, and get their views on what is missing. How it performs on other platforms will also have to be carefully monitored as it looks particulary good on the iPhone - but then most things do :)

Students to get University direct to their mobile

This press release has just gone out about a new mobile service we're about to launch:

A unique new mobile application that will enable students to receive University information direct to their mobile phone is set to be launched next month by the University of Sheffield.

The pioneering new campusM™ application will allow students to access comprehensive information about upcoming events, view campus maps and have their own up-to-date timetable, with just one click of a button.

The application, developed by oMbiel, will also feature a friend locator to help them meet up with other students, and users will also be able to browse their library records and look up faculty, staff members or student contacts from the University directory. Students will also be able to use the application to receive the latest news and important alerts to help them get the most out of their University life.

The University of Sheffield will be the first of a group of universities in the UK to roll out campusM™ to its students, who will then be able to download the application for free from the University’s online portal.

For the launch, campusM™ will be available on the iPhone and iPod touch, but by the end of the year, the application will be compatible with other mobile phones, including those from BlackBerry®, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, Sanyo and Sony Ericsson.

Dr Christine Sexton, Director of the University of Sheffield’s Corporate Information and Computing Services, said: “With over 24,000 students and almost 6,000 staff, students are living increasingly mobile lives, needing information and services on the move at anytime. We had to find a way to make our services more accessible to meet the need of our students. campusM™ will ultimately save students time, keep them better informed and make communicating with staff and other students a lot easier.

“The campusM™ application offers an integrated suite of services that our students want, enabling them to stay informed with the ease and convenience that mobility brings. It gives students all the information they need in one central place, which is accessible anytime and anywhere and which will enhance the overall student experience and allow them to concentrate more of their time on their studies.”

Hugh Griffiths, CEO of oMbiel said: “Our selection by the University of Sheffield is validation that oMbiel is providing a leading industry application to make student services available at the tap of a finger, regardless of their location. It is a major milestone in our development of mobile applications for the Higher Education sector and it will significantly contribute to the rapid expansion of the technology in the UK.”

I'm dead pleased with this - it's been a great example of a quick implementation, outsourced to a company who worked extremely well with us.