Up until last Tuesday, Texas Woman's University students had to navigate multiple pages to check e-mail on their smartphones.
Last week, TWU launched a version of its website for mobile devices. ON THE WEB
• TWU mobile site: http://m.twu.edu or www.twu.edu
"Students have been interested in finding a mobile website like this," said Branee Robinson, a junior nursing major from Dallas. "This definitely is more convenient."
The new mobile Web page offers 12 buttons that link to the university's programs, admissions office, financial aid office, campus directory, events calendar, Blackboard - through which TWU delivers online courses - and other destinations.
The university's Web development team spent four months creating the mobile site.
Their work is part of the three-phase project designed to improve access to TWU's website. Phase 2 of the project, to be completed this spring, includes launching mobile apps through Apple's App Store and the Android Market. The third phase will include making the site more mobile-friendly.
The mobile site's content was created based on a survey of more than 1,000 current and prospective students. They were surveyed by the Web team and the marketing research students under the direction of Pushkala Raman, a marketing professor in the TWU School of Management.
"My students did a survey, a research project, to find out what students wanted in a mobile site," Raman said. "This is the first stage for the mobile website; you still have to log in to have access to the other things."
Raman said her classes work on three to four projects each semester. Four students from of the research team tested the survey questions and developed the information needed to help the Web team create the mobile site.
"They also looked at other local universities to test their mobile sites and find out what they liked or did not like in them," Raman said.
According to university officials, results showed that 73 percent of current and prospective students use a mobile device to access the TWU website. The features they most wanted were the ability to find textbooks and access Blackboard, the Pioneer Portal and e-mail.
According to Dave Olsen, a professional technologist at West Virginia University, a growing number of colleges and universities have added mobile sites to their Internet platforms.
"The number of schools using mobile sites has doubled every year since 2009," Olsen said.
Presently, Olsen's list includes a total of 330 mobile websites now available at campuses including Baylor University, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University.
Candice Haley, a senior government major from Dallas, said TWU's new mobile website makes information easier to access.
"Everything is right at your fingertips," Haley said. "I love it."
KARINA RAMÍREZ can be reached at 940-566-6878. Her e-mail address is kramirez@dentonrc.com .
