uPortal's mobile friendly theme
Jenn demonstrated a portal instance she wrote running uPortal that displays well on a mobile device. Base uPortal detects user agent and routes you to the correct theme. Displays list for navigation instead of tabs.
In theory you could have non-mobile-friendly portlets filtered out of the layout. Or it could use a different layout.
While uPortal has had support for this but there are some bugs in that Unicon Cooperative Support has been working on fixing.
The process of developing a mobile theme is basically the same as developing another theme.
The structure is different that a traditional theme structure.
TimC says this has been a strong factor in getting buy in to deploying portlets.
The use of Fluid components is encouraged; they already have some mobile support.
Other types of mobile support
texting?
native apps?
Cell devices: iPhone, smart phones, old-style phones - three basic themes
Who is asking for mobile support
Anecdotes:
- IT management thinks we need it
- students don't want you pushing to their cell phones
- not everything is available in the portal now, so you need to address mobile strategies beyond the portal
- geo-mapping/location is a real value-add for cell phones but schools are not positioned to take advantage of it
- look at what the current teens will likely expect
- need to identify what they want
- they don't want push - they want pull
- students use mobile sites even from their regular PCs
- why can't you get your degree off of a cell phone?
- some text books publishers are making books available online
- visitors on campus may be very interested in mobile access
Suggested info
- events
- maps
- directory
- athletics
Issues
- 3G+ available is spotty in areas
- need to look at how much you really deliver on each page
- might be interesting in writing an app that consumes a feed from a uPortal instance (I am not sure what AndrewP was getting at here); nice out of the box eye candy might be valuable marketing
- need to get vendor buy in from those providing services on campus
- need to identify low hanging fruit
- while automatically directing users to the 'right' version based on user agent, they may actually want a specific version. do we specifically ask them each time? Do we store their preference?
- Need to look at making data available to others that want to make devices
- Students are expecting APIs to their academic data
- what about security on mobile devices? SSL is now supported on modern smart phones
- are their social problems that now arise with the wide spread use of mobile devices
Observations
- there has been an increase in mobile-focused sites, but these are also becoming popular on regular PCs because they are simple and easy to use
- there is interest in both browser based solutions and native apps; perhaps we should focus on open standards that can increase integration with other apps on the phone
Examples
- m.rpi.edu
- m.mit.edu
- mobile.usc.edu
- m.iu.edu
Next steps
- support for user mobile profiles