To promote a more connected community through technological leadership, the University of Cincinnati decided to start offering its own mobile phones and rate program to its students, faculty, and staff. It wasn't enough, however, just to sell phones at affordable rates. “We knew that the key to a successful program was to develop university-specific applications that would give our users targeted, useful benefits, generate demand for the program, and differentiate our offering from the commodity market,” says Siff.




The university teamed up with Microsoft Gold Certified Partners clearTXT and NuSoft Solutions, which deliver line-of-business applications that run on Windows Mobile 5.0 software and use the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework. Says Siff, “Windows Mobile offers a powerful platform using the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework, such that there’s really no limit to the types of applications that we can develop for our mobile use.”



For example, partner clearTXT integrated the phones with the university’s Blackboard system, translating the real-time course content for delivery to mobile phones, providing authentication for Blackboard on the phones, and developing a University of Cincinnati home page feed through Really Simple Syndication (RSS). The feed is used to deliver campus-directory search and dial functionality.

NuSoft Solutions built the program’s safety and convenience features, including the link to the university’s police department, call tracking for security logs, and shuttle bus notification.

Ensuring that the phones would contribute to personal safety meant guaranteeing coverage from anywhere on campus, so the university brought in Cincinnati Bell to set up a ubiquitous infrastructure. “Working with our partners was terrific,” says Siff. “They were responsive to our needs and worked within a tight timeline to get the program in place quickly.”

The mobility project began with planning and focus groups in March 2005. One year later, major pieces of the infrastructure were in place, and the applications were in develop-ment. Both were necessary prerequisites for the rollout of the service, which took place at the start of the 2006–07 school year. At that time, the university introduced the “Bearcat Phone” program (named for the university’s mascot) on a choice of mobile devices to its approximately 4,000 entering freshmen.

In late 2006, the university piloted Bearcat Phones from i-mate with a college faculty unit and a staff unit, developing the services and pricing plans for a corporate program to augment and replace landline telephones.

Resident students are another important constituency for Bearcat Phones. At the University of Cincinnati, as is happening at many other schools, residential life managers want to pull landline telephones from the residence halls. Acting on the results of focus groups of resident students, the university will be providing Bearcat Phones to each of the 3,400 incoming resident students for the 2007–08 school year. The university anticipates that it will see a return on its invest¬ment by July 2008, after which the program will be self-sustaining.

Benefits

The University of Cincinnati is making academic information more accessible to active, busy students and encouraging a more connected community overall. Its mobile phone program is appealing because the phones provide the information to keep people in tune with academic news and campus events, not to mention the good coverage, reasonable price, and link to campus police.

Increases Productivity

By providing a university-centric mobile phone program that pushes information to users, the university is making it possible for students to increase their productivity because everything from syllabus changes to the student directory is delivered to their fingertips in real time. Says Siff, “We need connectivity to the university’s information resources for education to flourish. Our students can get the information they need when they need it—from anywhere on our campus on the device they choose.”

Adds to Quality of Life

Although students have the option of contacting the campus police from any mobile phone, coverage could be spotty. “Students can really count on a Bearcat Phone as a security device because we’re ensuring coverage from everywhere on campus,” says Siff. “All a student has to do is dial ‘*UC’ on a Bearcat Phone to get immediate contact with University Public Safety. The dispatcher will recognize the registered phone and caller by name and arrange assistance with any situation—vehicle jump starts, unlocking a vehicle, or help in an uncomfortable situation.”

Students also have access to real-time information about shuttle bus routes and schedules. The shuttle bus notification on the Bearcat Phones shows users actual times, not published schedules, to ensure that students don’t waste precious time waiting for a bus to arrive.

Enhances Communication Between Students and Faculty

Students no longer have to find a wall jack or wireless hotspot to get the latest information from their professors. Faculty can be assured that students are receiving updates in real time. “Our system doesn’t just send a message that there’s an update; it provides an embedded URL that the user can follow to view the updated information, so we have higher levels of communication for everyone,” says Siff.

Showcases the University as a Leader

By building a solution that runs on Windows Mobile 5.0, the university gains the flexibility to add functionality in the future and to provide continuing hardware choices for students. “Many universities are trying to deal with providing the sorts of quality-of-life benefits that we can deliver with this system,” concludes Siff. “We try always to keep students’ future needs in mind, so we’ve chosen tools that will help us continue to extend our services as technology changes.”