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8 pressing challenges for campus IT departments


Campus IT departments will need to master a wide range of new skills and tools in order to take full advantage of innovative mobile technologies in the coming years.

campusIn a blog post last week, Nick Jones, vice president of Gartner, pointed out essential skills and tools IT departments worldwide will have to master if they hope to remain ahead of the mobile technology curve.

Multiplatform/multiarchitecture application development tools

Picking and choosing which operating systems to develop for is no longer an option. Accessibility on all platforms is essential, and according to Jones organizations will need new development tools that support Andriod, iOS and Windows. IT teams will also need to balance technical and nontechnical issues, “such as such as productivity versus vendor stability,” in order to support three architectures – native, hybrid, and mobile.

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HTML5

HTML5 – the next step in HTML the main markup language used to create webpages — is not as easy to use for mobile development due to security and implementation risks. Despite its current problems, as HTML5 becomes more popular among web developers it will become an “essential technology for organizations delivering applications across multiple platforms.”

Advanced mobile user experience design

Who wants boring apps? New mobile apps will have to deliver user experiences with well-designed, interactive interfaces, which consumers have come to expect. Top consumer apps have set high standard for interface and interaction, campus IT needs to live up to consumers’ high expectations.

High-precision location sensing

Location sensing is must for campus IT departments that want their mobile applications to stand out. New technology offers more precise location sensing abilities, which can be used to send mobile users personalized services and contextual information.

Wearable devices

Google Glass, smart watches, and fitness trackers are among the new wearable devices that communicate with our smartphones allowing mobile users to consume information in new ways. College IT will have to come up with new ways that allow students and faculty to take advantage of new devices.

New Wi-Fi standards

Demands on Wi-Fi infrastructure are already increasing as more Wi-Fi enabled devices flood college campuses than ever before. New Wi-Fi standards such as 802.11ac, 11ad, 11aq and 11ah will improve network performance, but in order to take advantage of the new opportunities available campus IT departments may need to replace their existing Wi-Fi structure.

Enterprise mobile management

“Enterprise mobile management” is a set of several mobile management, security and support technologies focused on the managing the growing number mobile computing devices, according to Jones. Tools such as mobile application management and application wrapping will need to “mature, grow in scope and eventually address a wide range of mobile management needs across all popular OSs on smartphones, tablets and PCs.”

Metrics and monitoring tools

As the amount of mobile devices students bring to campus increases, college IT departments will need to find a way to avoid performance issues. Application Performance Monitoring (APM), can help avoid issues by providing “visibility into app behavior, delivers statistics about which devices and OSs are adopted, and monitors user behavior to determine which app features are being successfully exploited.”

Peter Sclafani is an editorial intern at eCampus News.

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