Post on 19-May-2015
uMobile OverviewTaking Mobile Applications and Devices to the Next Level
Jennifer Bourey, UniconJasig-Sakai Conference 2012
About Unicon
Trusted Partner since 1993
Expertise in Open Source Software for Education
Professional Services for uPortal, Sakai, CAS, Shib, Grouper, and soon Student Success Planner
Innovative Cooperative Support Program
Common Themes to Date
Student or visitor-focused
Cater to campus life use cases
News, events
Maps, transportation
Maybe some course features
Often no authentication or personalization
Current Challenges
Diverse Audiences
Students
Provide course resources, grades, schedules
Support campus life and activities
Faculty and Staff
Payroll information, administrative resources
Diverse Audiences
Prospective Students
Admissions sessions and deadlines
Visitor parking
Alumni
Increase engagement and donations
Content Creation
Many departments want to publish mobile content
Departments have varying resources, technical expertise
Need for delegated authoring, administration
Development
Must develop code separately for each platform, mobile web
Requires developers to work with new and diverse technologies
New APIs for mobile modules
May change rapidly
Might not offer enough flexibility
Complex Integration Requirements
Complex higher ed environments
Data resides in many different systems
One university many have many campuses, schools
Complex audience
Diverse user populations
Users with overlapping roles
Collaboration Challenges
Desire for collaboration
Every university is different!
Harder to share open-source code effectively
Graphic copyright EducauseMobile IT in Higher Education, 2011http://www.educause.edu/MobileITinHigherEducation
App Distribution
Must republish to make even minor changes to app
Submission process adds delay, reduces control
Potential for mismatch between server and app
Introducing uMobile
uMobile is a Campus Solution
Delivers rich mobile campus platform for:
Visitors
Recruits
Students
Faculty
Staff
Alumni
uMobile is Native
iPhone Android
uMobile is Web
Android 1.5+
webOS 1.4.1+
Windows Mobile 6.5.1+(via Opera)
MeeGo 1.1
iOS 2.2.1+
bada 1.0+
uMobile is open source
Developed directly in Jasig control with all source code available under Apache Software License 2.0
Maintained by a community of developers governed by the Jasig uMobile Steering Committee
This is real open source enterprise software (i.e. no separate proprietary version that requires a licensing fee)
uMobile is Higher EduMobile builds on Jasig’s experience in enterprise higher education integration portals
Sophisticated and mature framework for personalization, aggregation, access control, integration, and administration
Production instances supporting millions of users
uMobile can be adopted stand-alone or as an extension of a “traditional” enterprise portal
Personalizing the Mobile Experience
Authentication
Display user-specific information
Calendars, course schedules
Support single sign-on to other mobile university websites
Role-based ContentUse existing campus roles to drive personalized content
Potential data sources
LDAP, Active Directory, Grouper
Local (app-specific) group definitions
Attribute-based ad-hoc groups
Use roles to distribute both module list and content within modules
Customization
Improve app usefulness and user engagement by allowing users to override defaults
Toggle optional calendar, news feeds
Select defaults and favorites
Add/remove optional content modules
Integrate with any desktop-side portal customizations
Authorization
Control permissions on modules and module content
Support privacy and data protection
Protected department resources
Directory data
Integrating with Campus Resources
Development Strategy
Where possible, support open data formats
Enable common implementations out of the box
Publish open APIs for custom integrations
Standards-based Development
Enable single sign-on
CAS, Shibboleth
Consume common data formats
RSS, iCal
Support common user attribute and group data sources
LDAP, Active Directory, Grouper
SakaiMoodle
SIS
DB
Campus Integration
Easing Development and Distribution
Native App ChallengesUnfamiliar and varied technology, dev environments
iOS: Cocoa
Android: Java
Need to implement a feature multiple times
Publishing apps takes time and effort
Still need another strategy for mobile browsers
Hard to leverage existing investment
A Better Strategy
What if we could . . .
Write features once
Using familiar technology
While offering both native and browser-based views
And re-using existing application logic
Single codebase produces all mobile views
Multiple native applications
Multiple mobile web browsers
No update to the mobile client app required
Familiar development environment
Potentially share logic with desktop functionality
Web-Centric Content
WebView presents markup from portal
Native components provide navigation
Multiple ViewsOften need a different feature or interface on one platform
Share backend logic as much as possible
Business logic
Controllers
Render separate view layers as needed
Separate layout / CSS for desktop, tablet, mobile
May need to omit chrome from native views
Multiple ViewsController
View Resolver
Desktop View
Mobile View
Model
Calendar Views
Phone
Desktopin-page
MobileMobile
Tablet
Native App Codebase
Based on Titanium Appcelerator
JavaScript-based platform-independent development framework
Compile shared codebase to iPhone and Android applications with native controls
Open source under the Apache 2.0 License
Native Components via REST
REST services provide JSON data for
User layout
Map data
Contacts information
REST feeds can easily be created for other areas
Present native components based on portal data
Request data fromuPortal map service
Return location data as JSON
uMobileServer
uMobileApp
Portlet-based Content
JSR-168 / JSR-286 portlet standards
Enables collaboration beyond uMobile project
Google Gadget integration
Alternate language modules
Provides a familiar, well-defined development model
Assures modules will work across uMobile versions
External Content
Leverage existing mobile investment
Allow departments to develop and control their own content
Enable web-based development in other frameworks
Include external content via WebView, IFrame, WebProxy
External Content
Application Skinning
Administrative Access
Cache Management Content Creation
StatisticsData Migration
Looking Ahead
Augmented reality map integration
Enhanced course and grades portlet
Custom mobile layouts
Additional native app platforms
Augmented Reality
uMobile is UniqueTruly Free & Open Source Software
Provides Native App and Mobile Web
Provides personalized experience and information
Build on mature, proven, scalable, enterprise integration portal framework
Ready for deployment at your campus now
No other platform has all of these characteristics
More Resources
Jasig uMobile web site
jasig.org/umobile
YouTube channel
youtube.com/jasigumobile
uMobile Manual
wiki.jasig.org/display/umobile