1. uMobile Overview
Taking Mobile Applications and Devices to the
Next Level
Jennifer Bourey, Unicon
Jasig-Sakai Conference 2012
2. About Unicon
Trusted Partner since 1993
Expertise in Open Source Software for Education
Professional Services for uPortal, Sakai, CAS, Shib,
Grouper, and soon Student Success Planner
Innovative Cooperative Support Program
3. 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
5. Diverse Audiences
Students
Provide course resources, grades, schedules
Support campus life and activities
Faculty and Staff
Payroll information, administrative resources
7. Content Creation
Many departments want to publish mobile content
Departments have varying resources, technical
expertise
Need for delegated authoring, administration
8. 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
9. 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
10. Collaboration Challenges
Desire for collaboration
Every university is
different!
Harder to share open-
source code effectively
Graphic copyright Educause
Mobile IT in Higher Education, 2011
http://www.educause.edu/MobileITinHigherEducation
11. App Distribution
Must republish to make even minor changes to app
Submission process adds delay, reduces control
Potential for mismatch between server and app
15. uMobile is Web
webOS 1.4.1+
Android 1.5+
iOS 2.2.1+ Windows Mobile 6.5.1+
(via Opera)
bada 1.0+ MeeGo 1.1
16. 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)
17. uMobile is Higher Ed
uMobile 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
21. Role-based Content
Use 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
22. 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
23. Authorization
Control permissions on modules and module content
Support privacy and data protection
Protected department resources
Directory data
26. Development Strategy
Where possible, support open data formats
Enable common implementations out of the box
Publish open APIs for custom integrations
27. 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
31. Native App Challenges
Unfamiliar 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
32. 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
33. Web-Centric Content
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
35. Multiple Views
Often 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
36. Multiple Views
Controller
View Resolver Model
Desktop Mobile
View View
38. 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
39. 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
40. uMobile
Server
Request data from Return location
uPortal map service data as JSON
Present native components
uMobile based on portal data
App
41. 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
42. 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
51. uMobile is Unique
Truly 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
52. More Resources
Jasig uMobile web site
jasig.org/umobile
YouTube channel
youtube.com/jasigumobile
uMobile Manual
wiki.jasig.org/display/umobile
