UNISG.6 |
Mobile Uni-App (Phase 2) |
Long Title: | Mobile Uni-App (Phase 2) |
Leading Organization: |
Universität St. Gallen |
Participating Organizations: |
Universita della Svizzera Italiana
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz |
Domain: | ELS |
Status: | finished |
Start Date: | 15.01.2012 |
End Date: | 30.04.2013 |
Project Leader: | A. Back |
Deputy Project Leader: | T. Sammer |
Website: | http://app.unisg.ch |
See also Phase 1 and Phase 1.5.
Componant | Description |
Project website on GitHub | Project website on GitHub |
Project website UNISG | Project website at the department for infomation management UNISG |
Project source code at GitHub | Project source code at GitHub |
App at UNISG | Mobile Uni-App as used by the University of St.Gallen |
Mobile Uni-App is a Swiss fork of the Kurogo-Mobile-Web project. The existing project was adapted to fit the
needs of Swiss higher education institutes and new functionality based on the Kurogo framework was developed.
Mobile Uni-App is based on PHP and Javascript and delivers high quality, data driven customizable content
to a wide range of mobile devices.
In the course of phase 2, the following modules have been developed:
The major benefits of Mobile Uni-App are:
Two of the developed apps enable mobile access to information and features that support students in their daily activities on the campus.
They include features such as map and location service, people directory, RSS news-reader, library access such as search and reservation
(ALEPH & EbscoHost), public transportation timetable, access to the current canteen menu, and other functions.
The third app allows students to access and use the main features of the Moodle e-Learning platform directly
from their mobile devices without necessarily having to connect to a PC.
Furthermore AAI/Shibboleth authentication has been implemented for native apps in order to use the same
authentication as for other university services.
The source code of the apps is publicly available under an open-source license and can be easily re-used by other Swiss universities.
To sustain the service, the University of St.Gallen has a contract with a company that will also handel incoming service tickets and requests for the extension of the Uni-App.
Full service is therefore ensured for the upcoming years.
To communicate the offer to the students, Uni-App is listed as one of the official IT services of the
University of St.Gallen and IT instructors are trained to answers questions concerning the Uni-App.
Focus will be on modules with functionality that is on the one hand strongly demanded by students (survey
results on the demand for mobile services at the University of St. Gallen are included in the result documents of Phase 1)
and on the other hand functionalities that many institutes need respectively can use.
The following modules will be developed:
Another important target is to establish a network of Swiss universities where each university shares their new modules and developments with other universities. This network and the open source policy used for developments are a big step towards the sustainability of the project and any other project of a Swiss higher education institute that is concerned with a mobile solution. For that purpose the Swiss community should be integrated into the existing iMobileU community and the source will be published using GitHub.
The modules will use existing standards used by Swiss universities and thus be very easily applicable for other Swiss educational institutes. They can be easily customized to the requirements of other universities and will be available for free as open source modules that include extensive documentation.
Detailed developer documentation about the implementation of iOS and Android native apps will be provided and an online user manual explaining the main functionalities of the developed native apps will be created. This should be a valid support to all people using the native Mobile-Uni Apps.