Computer Science iPhone apps featured in Financial Post

Financial Post

Friday, August 28, 2009

University of Saskatchewan to offer students free iPhone apps

Matt Hartley, Financial Post

Life would have been so much easier for Chad Jones if the iPhone had existed when he was a first-year university student.

Instead, the now 31-year-old computer science instructor at the University of Saskatchewan will have to be content with simplifying the university experiences for hundreds of students, and for bringing his university's administration into the mobile age.

That's because the University of Saskatchewan will be the first Canadian university to offer its students a free iPhone application -- known as iUSask -- that will allow them to find their classes, look up library books and check their grades from the touch screen of their smartphone.

"At a lot of campuses, engagement has been going down and the best way to reach this group is cellphones," said Mr. Jones, who once worked for iPhone maker Apple Inc. at the company's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

"If a student comes out of class and opens up their cellphone, and you see this all the time, we want to be on that screen when they push that button. You're communicating with students in the way that they want to be communicated with."

Today, smartphones such as the iPhone, Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and other mobile devices are as much a part of university life as study halls and Thursday night pub outings. Just as the PC revolution changed the very nature of higher learning, the smartphone is beginning to transform the university experience.

To date, the application has been downloaded by more than 900 users. While 90% of those downloads have come from inside Canada, the application is generating significant international attention and Mr. Jones has fielded inquiries from schools in California and Kentucky looking to see if his team can build them their own applications.

One of the first academic iPhone applications was created by Stanford University in California. The journalism school at the University of Missouri has mandated that all its incoming students purchase either an iPhone or an iPod Touch device, in addition to their textbooks, as part of their studies.

In fact, in some academic circles, a push is on for all students to purchase smartphones before coming to university, similar to how students today are all but required to have their own computer when they first arrive at their dorm.

Of course, technology has already altered attendance in lecture halls. In 2007, Apple unveiled an addition to its popular iTunes music store known as iTunes U, a service that allowed academic institutions to post video and audio recordings of lectures and other coursework, which students could download to their computer or iPod.

Dozens of American schools, as well as six Canadian universities, including Queen's, University of Western Ontario and McGill University, have at least a few courses participating in the project.

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