Faced with the exponential growth of traffic from mobile browsers to the University’s website, the increasing market dominance of smart phones and the growing percent of high school and college students that access the internet via mobile devices, The University undertook dual projects of developing a mobile app and a mobile website in late 2010. We will walk through the analysis of vendors, platforms, content, etc we went through in the planning stage as well as the implementation, launch and early results. We will share lessons we learned as well as offer some suggestions for schools considering mobile development at their institution.

1. Lori Nidoh
Director of Marketing
Communications
The University of Scranton

2. Today’s Discussion
 The current mobile environment
 Our internal assessment
 Mobile initiatives
 Early results
 What’s next?

4. Today, it is completely unimaginable that a
university would exist without a website. Bad,
good, awesome, terrible – it doesn’t matter,
you have one. It is expected, demanded, and
if you didn’t, it would have a devastating
impact on the impression people have of
your school. We are little more than a stone’s
throw away from this same trend for mobile
web.
“Best of the Mobile Higher Ed Web”, Michael Fienen, Director of Web Marketing at
Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS, .eduguru, May 17, 2010

5.  Hand-held devices like smartphones and
tablets are fast becoming the primary way
many people use the Internet.
 Halfof all college students used mobile gear to
get on the Internet every day last year,
compared with 10% of students in 2008,
according to Educause, the educational-
technology consortium.
“As the Web Goes Mobile, Colleges Fail to Keep Up”, The Chronicle of Higher
Education, January 23, 2011

6. Morgan Stanley Research, December 2009

7. Nielsen Wire, October 14, 2010

9.  The
University of Scranton is a private, Jesuit
and Catholic university located in Northeast PA
 We
offer 61 undergraduate and 25 graduate
programs to approximately 6,070 students.
 4,100 Undergraduate
 2,149 Graduate (includes online programs)
 Most of our students are from PA, NY and NJ
 Secondary markets - CT, MD, VA & MA

10.  November09 – we began to examine the
mobile phenomenon and to question how and
when we needed to respond.
 Mobile
traffic, while still very low on our site
compared to overall traffic, was increasing -
247% increase from 2008 to 2009.
 Other
projects underway were already utilizing
resources that would need to work on mobile.
 Decided to reevaluate in spring 2010.

11.  Summer 2010 - IT department began
evaluating options for mobile solutions –
build? buy? combination?
 Marketing/Communications monitored
• The use of mobile apps and the development of
mobile sites in higher-ed.
• The continued rise of mobile traffic on our web
site.
• Research on use of smartphones by teens.

12.  EDUCAUSE: Mobile Apps on Campus
• As of fall 2010 just 13% of institutions surveyed had
activated mobile apps.
• 10% expect to activate mobile apps in the coming
academic year.
• 25% indicated that the mobile app strategy at their
institution is currently under review.
 Datafrom the EDUCAUSE Campus Computing
Survey suggests that the % of campus that have
deployed mobile apps could increase by 50% or
more between fall 2010 and 2011.

13. Visits to The University of Scranton Website
from Smartphones

14.  Potential impact on prospective students
• What % of prospective students who see our
advertising or receive our direct mail pieces
will try to access our website via mobile
devices?
 Noel-Levitz 2010 E-Expectations survey of more
than 1,000 college bound high school seniors
found that 23% have searched college websites
from their smartphones.

15.  Potential impact on prospective students
• What effect would a negative experience on
our full website when viewed via a
smartphone have on their perception of the
University?
 The E-Expectations report also found that 1 in 4
students reported removing a school from their
prospective list because of a bad experience
on that school’s website.

16. Mobile Traffic – Visitors by Type
Jan – Dec 2010
New Visitor
Returning Visitor
46.7%
53.3% Full Site:
New 38%
Returning 62%
Avg Time on Site 2:11 Bounce Rate 50.5% Pages per Visit 2.8
Full Site 2.58 43.4% 4.4

17.  Impact on current students
• Teens and young adults increasingly rely on
mobile devices to obtain information - are the
channels we currently use becoming less
effective?
 Our weekly e-newsletter Royal News gets around
1,600 visits and 2,300 page views, low considering
over 10,000 students, faculty and staff.
 Events and news are also featured on the home
page of our website but the user might not have a
good viewing experience on a mobile phone.

19.  Fall 2010 – we decided to take the
plunge!
 Several initiatives were identified with
the initial focus on recruitment
 Functionality requiring authentication,
such as registration for courses, grades,
etc., was deferred to phase II.

20.  Mobile App vs Mobile Site
• Each have different strengths/weaknesses
Mobile App Mobile Site
• More immersive • Easier to add/change content
• More responsive interface • Easier to support multiple
BUT platforms
• No download required – use
• Requires install
redirects from full site
• Multiple apps / platforms
• Longer to deploy updates or BUT
changes • Can lack “slickness” of apps
“The Many Faces of Mobile”, Erik Runyon, CASE Indiana, 4/15/11
“Mobile Trends & Opportunities”, mStoner, College of William and Mary webinar

21.  Goal 1 – Identify a mobile app solution
and implement by March 31
 Goal 2 – Build a mobile site that contains
key content from full site optimized for
mobile browsers. Also due March 31.
 Goal 3 - utilize QR codes to point users
to mobile content that supplements the
messaging of our recruitment materials.

23.  September 2010 – Mktg and IT began
evaluation of mobile app solutions.
 Key criteria included cost, time to
implement, number of modules,
flexibility, frequency of new feature
releases, higher-ed clients.
 Demo’s continued through October and a
vendor, Straxis Technologies, was chosen
in early November.

24. Requirement Blackboard Pocket Macroview Straxis U360
Mobile Campus Labs Mobile
Blackberry Yes No Yes No
iPhone Yes Yes Yes Yes
Android In development 1.5 yrs away Yes Yes
Easy to No Yes Yes
customize?
Course Yes Majors & Yes Yes
Catalog Programs
Time to 90 days, 6 60 days, 6 – 8 weeks,
implement features approx 10 15 features
CMS No In development Yes Yes
Social Media No – use Links FB & Twitter Integrated Twitter, links
for others

25.  Project lead – Dir. of Marketing Comm.
 Teamincluded Dir. of Info Tech Dev and
Web Designer/Developer from Mktg.
 12/21/10 - Kick-off conference call.
 Weekly calls with our team and Straxis
 Pervendor, average implementation time
is 6 - 8 weeks, largely dependent on us.

26.  Modules requiring most work
• Campus Map and Campus Tour
 You will need good images and descriptions of
all your campus buildings, AND GPS locations
• Directory
 Needed a clean file with distinct fields to be
imported.
• RSS feed for weekly e-newsletter

27.  It WILL take longer than you think
 allow plenty of time
 avoid hard deadlines
 If
you are the project lead – It will take LOTS of
your time.
 many, many details to manage
 need to constantly monitor progress of vendor
 Testing takes lots of time – and should involve as many people
and devices as possible
 Developyour promotion plan and get materials in
the works as early as possible.

28.  App launched 3/26
 15 features at launch
 Downloaded over
2,200 times by 5/31
• 1,633 for iPhone
• 605 for Android

29.  Features include
• Campus News
• Athletics
• Events
• Campus Map
• Campus Tour
• Multimedia

30.  Features (cont.)
• References
• Courses
• Bulletins
• Checklists
• Polls
• Weather

31.  Features (cont.)
• Twitter
• Links
• Directory
• Radio

32.  New build submitted
to Apple 6/17,
expected live by 6/24
• Admissions module –
Find Your Counselor,
Events, Request Info
• “Share” events and news
via Facebook, Twitter,
Text and Email

33. Tile on the
University’s
home page

34. And in the left
hand navigation
of key lower level
pages.

35. Mobile and full
site versions of
mobile splash
page.

36. Billboards in secondary markets

37. Mall posters in
secondary
markets

38. On-Campus Slide on Introducing the
tower in Scranton Mobile App
for iPhone and Android
campus
center Show your Royal Pride!
Get Scranton app for your
smartphone and always have
the latest news, events and
information at your fingertips.
Features include:
News Social Media
Events WUSR radio feed
Catalog Campus Map
Directory Campus Tour
Athletics Royal News
Videos And more!
Dining Cards Photos
and Table Tents
Posters

39. Ad in Student
Newspaper
Featured in
Royal News

40. Posted on Facebook
and Twitter..

41.  Press release  Flyers
in info
 Article in local
packets at
paper and student  Accepted Students
Preview Day (3/31)
newspaper
 Reunion (6/11)
 Campus  Orientation (July)
presentations
 Recruitment
 Student Affairs
brochures
 Data Technology (starting 6/1)
Coordinators
 Undergraduate
 Alumni Board
viewbook (Aug.)

43. Steps we took
1. Identified top content currently being
accessed by mobile devices
• Google Analytics Top Content report with
Advanced Segment “Smartphones” applied.
• Based on this review a site structure was created
consisting of eight top-level pages and 29 sub-
pages.

44. 10/1 – 10/31 Top Level Sub-Pages
Pageviews (Index) Page
1,269 About Us Scranton Brand, Contact Us, Location,
Campus Map, Jesuit Tradition, Directions
1,030 Academics Undergrad Programs, Grad Programs,
Academic Calendar, Library
789 Admissions Visit, Apply, Request Info, Events, Contact
290 Alumni News, Events
1,321 Athletics News, Schedules, Scores, Teams
219 Financial Aid Checklist, Contact info
312 Human Resources Vacancy List
Social Media Links to social media hub page
News Add to top navigation of mobile site
Events Add to top navigation of mobile site

45. 2. Review content on target pages and
decide what to include on mobile and
what needs to be modified.
3. Decide which mobile operating systems
your site will support.
• Use Google Analytics “Mobile Devices”
report under Visitors section.

47.  Create mobile
templates
 Establish a
priority for
mobile page
development.
 Design and test
pages on targeted
devices.

48.  Create mobile templates

49.  Create mobile templates

50. Best Practices for Mobile websites
 Don’t try and replicate your full site
 Focus on key tasks people come to your website
to do
 Use analytics to identify what mobile users are
doing
 Redirect mobile users to a mobile version
of your site
 Keep forms minimal
“Design: Best Practices”, sixrevisions.com, August 18, 2010

51. Best Practices for Mobile websites
 Keep the layouts simple
• Re-engineer copy, hide unnecessary text, images
or media
 Use large, easy to press links and
clickable objects.
 Reduce the resolution & dimensions of
images
“Design: Best Practices”, sixrevisions.com, August 18, 2010

52. How we built our mobile site
 Scranton uses Hannon Hill’s CMS, Cascade
Server.
 Used the “Sites” feature within our CMS to
publish mobile pages to m.scranton.edu
destination (multiple publishing targets).
 Used jQuery Mobile for the framework and
cross-device compatibility.

53. How we built our mobile site
 End-users
can enter different content on their
mobile page using a “Mobile Content”
WYSIWYG text field.
 Orthey can leave the text field empty and the
default will be the same content as the full site.
 Built
or used existing RSS feeds for University
News, Athletics News, Events, Library Blog

63. Work in Progress
 Lots of new content on the way
• Working on mobile forms
• Better interactive features (ex maps)
• Grades, class schedules, etc. (authentication)
• New web calendar and athletics sites going live
with better mobile interfaces
• Working on deep links to online catalog

65. 9000
8000
7000
6000
5000
2010
4000
2011
3000
2000
1000
0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

66. iPhone Android Black iPod All
berry Visits
Visits 16,244 10,542 5,536 4,075 971,530
% of Mobile 45% 29% 15% 11% n/a
Visits
Pages/Visit 2.76 3.07 2.84 2.99 4:08
Avg. Time on 1:35 2:01 1:46 1:43 2:50
Site
% New Visits 47% 47% 44% 53% 39%
Bounce Rate 46% 46% 50% 48% 43%

67. Full Site Mobile Site
Page Pageviews Page Pageviews
Exam Schedule 2,587 Home Page 1,464
Academic Calendar 1,467 Academics Home 1,243
HR Vacancy List 1,250 Page
Athletics Home Page 971 Admissions Home 710
Page
HR Home Page 898
Athletics Home Pg 665
Athletics – Men’s 867
Baseball Campus Contacts 559
Admissions Home 831 Undergrad Programs 533
Page About Us 514
Tuition / Fees 693 Events 492

68. Measurement Full Site Mobile
Avg. Pageviews 3.88 4.64
Time on Site 2:47 3:44
Bounce Rate 45% 26%
% New Visits 39% 50%
Region: PA 56% 38%
Region: NY 13% 28%
Region: NJ 12% 7%
Region: CT, MD, VA, MA 8% 7%

69. Next Steps:
 New modules currently being developed
for 2nd and 3rd quarter 2011
• Library – currently in development/test
• Alumni – estimated for later this summer
• “Audiences” feature being developed. Self-
identify, “pick your path”, fall 2011
• Foursquare integration with campus map and
campus tour planned for later this year.

70. Next Steps:
 Licensed
SunGard Higher Education’s
Mobile Connection, a no fee mobile
framework.
 Fall
2011 working on building features for
current students, faculty and staff
 Features requiring authentication
 Integrate with current mobile app & site

71. The State of the Mobile Web in Higher Ed
April 2011
 37% provide a mobile solution
 Most target Current Students (89%) or
Prospective Students (86%)
 Goals include Supporting Campus Life
(81%) and Marketing & Branding (50%+)
 58% implemented dedicated mobile sites
 Only 22% implemented native apps
“The State of the Mobile Web Report”, Karine Joly, www.higheredexperts.com

72. Just when you thought you were
getting caught up with technology on
campus……

73. Tablet Computing
 More than 70% of college students and
college bound high school seniors are
interested in owning their own tablet
devices.
 Nearly 20% intend to
purchase a tablet in the
next six months.
 iPad traffic to our site
5/31 YTD > Android
May 2011, Pearson Foundation Survey on Students and Tablets

74.  On to the next challenge!
 Questions??
Thank you!