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Mobile app developed for Portal – first for U of L

dboyle
July 11, 2014
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The U of L will soon be launching itself into the mobile age thanks to a mobile application version of the Student Portal coming later this summer. Students will soon be able to download the app from the iTunes App Store and Google Play for iOS and androids respectively. Jamie Chinn, IT Services Applications Development Manager, says an email went out to all summer students the week of June 23 to make them aware and to solicit feedback for future versions.Mobile App

“We are very aware of how much students use their mobile devices, and we thought providing a mobile app version of the Student Portal would be a good place to start. While the portal performs quite well on a mobile phone browser, this app will make it even easier to navigate from feature to feature on a smaller device like a smartphone,” says Chinn.

The team is busy polishing the prototype with the University’s brand, colors and images, and testing the app for functionality. Following that will be getting it into the App stores. “It takes about a week to get an app approved by Google Play and three weeks to get approval from Apple.”

Chinn says the first version of the app will include much of the same functionality in the portal, and as new features are added to the latter, they will likely be added into the app as well. Mobile app-specific features such as push notifications when final grades are entered are being investigated for a future release.

Students can provide feedback on the App by visiting the Portal site: https://portal.uleth.ca/ , and either submitting a vote in the features poll, or by clicking on the blue Feedback tab on the right side of the page to submit ideas not found in the poll. With each suggestion or vote, students’ names are entered into a weekly draw for a $100 gift card until the end of August.

The Development team expects to have the app available mid-to-late August, which will coincide with the full launch of the student portal.

For more information, contact the Solutions Centre at (403) 329-2490 or help@uleth.ca.

Revitalized Notice Board to launch July 28

dboyle
July 3, 2014
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The University’s new Notice Board represents the culmination of months of hard work by the Web team, along with hours of user input and testing. Michael Warf, ITS Web Manager, says the team is excited to be launching the revitalized site. It has a number of useful and innovative tools that will make finding information easier and visually appealing, he adds.

“The current Notice Board is written in an old programming language and we no longer have the resources to support it. In technology terms, it’s a dinosaur. Last year the team was commissioned by University Advancement to produce a more modern tool.”new-notice-board

The team first reviewed the usage analytics on the old Notice Board which generate a visual representation of the mouse clicks on the site. “It revealed that it was used primarily as a bookmarking tool,” says Warf. “People clicked on buttons and icons to get to other pages like The Bridge, the online directory, employment opportunities and items that appeared on the image carousel. There were no deep dives into much of the content.” However, the team did discover that the site is the fifth-most-visited property on the University’s website, averaging approximately 1,500 visitors per day.

The next step was User Experience (UX) testing with a wide representation of faculty, staff and students. “We developed sketches which allowed us to get feedback and make quick and low-cost revisions with relative ease. That worked really well,” says Warf.

Among the elements in the prototype are the ability to filter content through keyword searches for date, subject and location. The UX results were not surprising to the Web team. “People really liked the ability to filter and search, the layout of the site, the ability to edit and manage posts, and that the content is all on one page. We also confirmed our suspicion that students had either not heard of the Notice Board, or had no use for it.”

Information sessions were conducted in June, and training workshops are scheduled for July 10 in University Hall, room E640. The workshops are limited to one hour at 9 a.m., 11 a.m., and 2 p.m. Faculty and staff are encouraged to attend for a more hands-on approach and will be prepared to enter notices in the new Notice Board after launch. Those who are unable to attend can contact help@uleth.ca to set up departmental training workshops.

Participants are encouraged to RSVP via survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QF92BMX) for the workshops to ensure availability of computers.

The launch date of the new and improved version is scheduled for July 28, 2014.