Texas A&M University Unveils Mobile Strategy and Go Mobile Website

Texas A&M University released its mobile strategy to meet mobile web demands and engage key audiences, especially prospective, current and former students. The Go Mobile website, produced by Texas A&M Information Technology, provides a central resource of recommendations and best practices to help departments overcome the challenges of delivering a mobile-friendly online presence.

The university supports making information accessible on any web-capable mobile device through technologies that are easy to deploy and maintain. "With students' increasing use of mobile devices, the university must employ innovative and cost-effective ways to meet this demand and deliver better services," said Pierce Cantrell, Vice President and Associate Provost for Information Technology. "The university's strategy moves mobile technology front and center, instead of taking a backseat to desktop computers."

A key component of the strategy is responsive web design. Responsive websites automatically rearrange content based on the visitor's screen size. This allows one website to work for smartphones, tablets or desktops, so a separate mobile site or expensive mobile app is not needed. To see responsiveness in action, visit gomobile.tamu.edu and resize the web browser window to the size of a smartphone screen.

For the small subset of departments needing a separate, standalone mobile website, Texas A&M recommends Mobile Web Framework (MWF), developed by the University of California, Los Angeles. Computing & Information Services, a department of Texas A&M IT, offers the centrally hosted MWF service at no charge to university departments and organizations.

The Mobile Strategy Team, formed at Cantrell's request, was tasked with developing the university's strategy and providing input on the Go Mobile site. The team included members from Texas A&M University Marketing & Communications, The Texas A&M University System Marketing & Communications, Academic Services, College of Architecture, Division of Student Affairs, University Libraries and Texas A&M IT. Watch the team's presentation.

The Mobile Strategy Team will be scheduling other events on how to go mobile. Join the GOMOBILE-L Listserv to receive updates.

Send questions or comments to Allison Oslund (tamu-it@tamu.edu), Texas A&M IT assistant director and team leader.

Texas A&M Information Technology provides IT services and resources that support the academic and research pursuits of The Texas A&M University System.