AUSTRALIA: University adopts iPhone app

The second oldest university in Australia claims to be at the forefront of education technology with a new iPhone application.

Nearing its 160th anniversary, the University of Melbourne says it has responded to the rise in mobile traffic to its suite of websites with the development of the 'Unimelb iPhone application' for staff and students.

The free application provides maps of each of the university's eight campuses scattered across Melbourne and country Victoria, an integrated staff contact directory, a web portal and an RSS news feed. The site has been downloaded more than 1,200 times in its first month of availability.

Michael Carolan, director of application services at the university, says the application was developed by Melbourne's long-time telecommunications partner Optus Business and mobile applications specialist Philology.

"The app aims to provide productivity gains and greater efficiency to the full-time university community as well as casual visitors on campus for lectures and special events," Carolan says.

While initially intended to assist staff, he says the university will continue working with Optus and Philology to extend its use for students and visitors. Those working on the project have been encouraged by how quickly mobile extensions to existing office-based applications could be developed and released to the wider university community.

"We've been in discussions for a while about a tailored iPhone application as our analysis has been highlighting a need for it for a while," Carolan says. "We've got more than 650 staff with iPhones and a recent snapshot of web hits on our university homepage found that of more than 4,500 visitors, nearly 4,000 were from iPhones."

He says whether searching for contact details, points of interest or other specific university information, staff now have the ability to do it all "on the go at the touch of a button".

"This has been a great example of a collaboration between our in-house IT teams and Optus that has allowed us to deliver technology innovation at a low cost and help realise very positive business outcomes."

Hugh Humphrey, director of mobility and convergence at Optus, says the iPhone application demonstrates how mobility solutions can be customised to drive greater productivity and efficiency within an organisation.

"Organisations are looking for more dynamic ways to use mobile devices to engage their staff and customers and better support business needs," Humphrey says. "This is especially true in the education sector where staff and students can leverage mobile applications to share resources and information more effectively.

The application is currently available on the iTunes store.

geoff.maslen@uw-news.com