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uMobile Taking Mobile Applications and Devices to the Next Level Jennifer Bourey, Unicon BCNet Conference 2012

uMobile: Taking Mobile Applications and Devices to the Next Level

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As demand for mobile technology in higher education increases, there is parallel pressure to manage and control mobile security, infrastructure and content delivery. uMobile introduces a higher-education focused platform for delivering authenticated, personalized content to mobile devices. Core features enable integration with campus directories, calendars, and learning management systems, as well as provide useful mobile tools such as maps.Backed by Jasig and a group of university sponsors, uMobile is built on top of well-tested integration libraries and benefits from a long history of community collaboration. The use of web-based technology allows universities to work in a familiar development environment, while open APIs (Application Programming Interface) and standards-based implementations enable integration with diverse university data sources. Role-based content distribution allows universities to target diverse communities such as students, staff, visitors, and alumni with relevant content.Learn more about the challenges stemming from the increase of mobile devices on campuses, and how uMobile and other application solutions can tackle this trend in higher education.

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Page 2: uMobile: Taking Mobile Applications and Devices to the Next Level

Common Themes to Date

Student or visitor-focused

Cater to campus life use cases

News, events

Maps, transportation

Maybe some course features

Often no authentication or personalization

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Current Challenges

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Diverse Audiences

Students

Provide course resources, grades, schedules

Support campus life and activities

Faculty and Staff

Payroll information, administrative resources

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Diverse Audiences

Prospective Students

Admissions sessions and deadlines

Visitor parking

Alumni

Increase engagement and donations

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Content Creation

Many departments want to publish mobile content

Departments have varying resources, technical expertise

Need for delegated authoring, administration

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Development

Must develop code separately for each platform, mobile web

Requires developers to work with new and diverse technologies

New APIs for mobile modules

May change rapidly

Might not offer enough flexibility

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Complex Integration Requirements

Complex higher ed environments

Data resides in many different systems

One university many have many campuses, schools

Complex audience

Diverse user populations

Users with overlapping roles

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Collaboration Challenges

Desire for collaboration

Every university is different!

Harder to share open-source code effectively

Graphic copyright EducauseMobile IT in Higher Education, 2011http://www.educause.edu/MobileITinHigherEducation

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App Distribution

Must republish to make even minor changes to app

Submission process adds delay, reduces control

Potential for mismatch between server and app

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Introducing uMobile

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uMobile is a Campus Solution

Delivers rich mobile campus platform for:

Visitors

Recruits

Students

Faculty

Staff

Alumni

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uMobile is Native

iPhone Android

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uMobile is Web

Android 1.5+

webOS 1.4.1+

Windows Mobile 6.5.1+(via Opera)

MeeGo 1.1

iOS 2.2.1+

bada 1.0+

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uMobile is open source

Developed directly in Jasig control with all source code available under Apache Software License 2.0

Maintained by a community of developers governed by the Jasig uMobile Steering Committee

This is real open source enterprise software (i.e. no separate proprietary version that requires a licensing fee)

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uMobile is Higher EduMobile builds on Jasig’s experience in enterprise higher education integration portals

Sophisticated and mature framework for personalization, aggregation, access control, integration, and administration

Production instances supporting millions of users

uMobile can be adopted stand-alone or as an extension of a “traditional” enterprise portal

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Personalizing the Mobile Experience

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Authentication

Display user-specific information

Calendars, course schedules

Support single sign-on to other mobile university websites

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Role-based ContentUse existing campus roles to drive personalized content

Potential data sources

LDAP, Active Directory, Grouper

Local (app-specific) group definitions

Attribute-based ad-hoc groups

Use roles to distribute both module list and content within modules

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Customization

Improve app usefulness and user engagement by allowing users to override defaults

Toggle optional calendar, news feeds

Select defaults and favorites

Add/remove optional content modules

Integrate with any desktop-side portal customizations

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Authorization

Control permissions on modules and module content

Support privacy and data protection

Protected department resources

Directory data

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Integrating with Campus Resources

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Development Strategy

Where possible, support open data formats

Enable common implementations out of the box

Publish open APIs for custom integrations

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Standards-based Development

Enable single sign-on

CAS, Shibboleth

Consume common data formats

RSS, iCal

Support common user attribute and group data sources

LDAP, Active Directory, Grouper

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SakaiMoodle

SIS

DB

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Easing Development and Distribution

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Native App ChallengesUnfamiliar and varied technology, dev environments

iOS: Cocoa

Android: Java

Need to implement a feature multiple times

Publishing apps takes time and effort

Still need another strategy for mobile browsers

Hard to leverage existing investment

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A Better Strategy

What if we could . . .

Write features once

Using familiar technology

While offering both native and browser-based views

And re-using existing application logic

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Single codebase produces all mobile views

Multiple native applications

Multiple mobile web browsers

No update to the mobile client app required

Familiar development environment

Potentially share logic with desktop functionality

Web-Centric Content

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WebView presents

markup from portal

Native components

provide navigation

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Multiple ViewsOften need a different feature or interface on one platform

Share backend logic as much as possible

Business logic

Controllers

Render separate view layers as needed

Separate layout / CSS for desktop, tablet, mobile

May need to omit chrome from native views

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Multiple ViewsController

View Resolver

Desktop View

Mobile View

Model

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Calendar Views

Phone

Desktopin-page

MobileMobile

Tablet

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Native App Codebase

Based on Titanium Appcelerator

JavaScript-based platform-independent development framework

Compile shared codebase to iPhone and Android applications with native controls

Open source under the Apache 2.0 License

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Native Components via REST

REST services provide JSON data for

User layout

Map data

Contacts information

REST feeds can easily be created for other areas

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Present native components based on portal data

Request data fromuPortal map service

Return location data as JSON

uMobileServer

uMobileApp

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Portlet-based Content

JSR-168 / JSR-286 portlet standards

Enables collaboration beyond uMobile project

Google Gadget integration

Alternate language modules

Provides a familiar, well-defined development model

Assures modules will work across uMobile versions

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External Content

Leverage existing mobile investment

Allow departments to develop and control their own content

Enable web-based development in other frameworks

Include external content via WebView, IFrame, WebProxy

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Application Skinning

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Administrative Access

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Cache Management Content Creation

Statistics

Data Migration

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Looking Ahead

Augmented reality map integration

Enhanced course and grades portlet

Custom mobile layouts

Additional native app platforms

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uMobile is UniqueTruly Free & Open Source Software

Provides Native App and Mobile Web

Provides personalized experience and information

Build on mature, proven, scalable, enterprise integration portal framework

Ready for deployment at your campus now

No other platform has all of these characteristics

Page 47: uMobile: Taking Mobile Applications and Devices to the Next Level

More Resources

Jasig uMobile web site

jasig.org/umobile

YouTube channel

youtube.com/jasigumobile

uMobile Manual

wiki.jasig.org/display/umobile