Self-service university admissions app launched

A US-based mobile software developer ModoLabs has launched a new service enabling universities to customise and create their own student recruitment applications for smartphones and tablets. Mobile Admissions was inspired by research that more than 60% of prospective college students are first introduced to a university through a mobile device. A US-based mobile software developer ModoLabs has launched a new service enabling universities to customise and create their own student recruitment applications for smartphones and tablets. Mobile Admissions was inspired by research showing around 6 billion people use mobile broadband worldwide—and that more than 60% of prospective college students are introduced to a university through a mobile device. The service, which students download as an app, soft launched last year but an updated version came out last month, building on key features such as facts and figures pages, travel directions, application requirements and virtual tours.

"With the exception of famous universities, most schools essentially struggle with how they present themselves"

"With the exception of famous universities, most schools essentially struggle with how they present themselves to potential students," ModoLabs' founder and COO, Andrew Yu, told The PIE News. "The idea is that today, what's more than adequate is having the tools to allow people to see the university and get admissions information directly from a mobile." According to the International Telecommunication Union, global mobile broadband subscriptions have grown 45% annually over the last four years. Today there are twice as many mobile-broadband as fixed broadband subscriptions led mostly by developing nations, which are also big student source countries, such as China and India. Mobile Admissions is part of a suite of software developed by ModoLabs using its platform Kurogo Mobile Optimized Middleware Platform, which connects various data sources throughout an institution while providing a simple content management system. Schools can add their own logo, background colours and images to the app. The software also synchs with a university's social media accounts allowing schools to integrate other marketing campaigns into the application. Yu said that time constraints and a lack of technological skills among university admissions officers were key to the product's development, and that its self-service maintenance made the price "very affordable". "The tool set sits on top of Kurogo publisher which allows a non-programmer to very easily and quickly update the contents of the mobile apps or mobile websites." Currently  more than 200 schools in 30 countries use the service including Harvard University, University of British Columbia and China Europe International Business School. Indiana State University says Mobile Admissions is helping it support its first mobile friendly website. "We knew that mobile web was important in general in recruitment, and in the last eight months we've seen about 61,000 unique visitors to our mobile website and the app has had about 8,500 downloads," services director, Santhana Naidu, told The PIE News. "We're seeing a lot of traffic from international countries in general." Yu says the apps will be available in multiple languages in the future and that the system could be adapted for individual departments at universities. "We now are enabling non-developers to create and maintain apps so we think that that's going to open the doors wide open for universities to continue to create more useful applications."