Mobile Phone Content: What Do Students Want, and When Do They Want It?

Presentation by Kathy Lynch, Associate Professor ICT Research & Development, University of the Sunshine Coast (small university – 3 faculties, 7,000 students). Research project into what students want on their mobile devices (but not iPads, rather phones with small screens, low battery life, impact on social presence, and when they want it). Looked at:

• What services do learners want pushed to their mobiles?
• Given these services, when do they want it?
• Do academics and admin staff perceive correctly what students want?

Research involved students (both UG and PG), academic and admin staff (student services, student admin, information services, IT services) via focus groups and questionnaires. Students and staff were evaluated separately in listing the types of messages and notification types students want and what staff though students would want. Students also provided information about their actual phones they owned.

Six specific message types emerged: (1) infrastructure and facilities, (2) admissions, (3) courses, (4) library and print services, (5) university community, (6) broader community

Staff thought students would want messages of an admin nature e.g. notification of dates, fees, enrolment, assessment and scholarships, and critical incidents such as weather alerts (remember this is Australia and things close during the cyclone season)

Students too wanted notification of dates and critical incidents and things of just-in-time nature, as well as notification of freebies and social activities.

Kathy also looked into whether students wanted automatic or subscription notifications. There’s quite a lot of stuff here, so I’ve asked Kathy for the slides if you’re interested in her findings. But some interesting things are worth noting about general student views in relation to university messages on their own phones: students prefer email for general university messages, they see it as an intrusion to receive such messages on their personal phone, they attach value and relevance to electronic messages (i.e. students generally treat emails from university as spam and assume SMS will be the same), concerns about end-user cost of SMS overseas, and concerns over trust regarding whether messages are actually urgent and critical).