New UMass Boston Mobile App–For Students, By Students

It’s not news to say that most college students rely on their phones for a lot of their daily activities. The UMass Boston IT department has known this for a long time, which is why about six years ago some forward-thinking people in IT realized that the university needed a mobile app of its own and set about making their vision a reality.ormation is as safe as possible.

With just a modest amount of funding Linda Modiste, Assistant Vice Chancellor for IT Application Services, got the ball rolling by contacting our mobile app vendor, Modo Labs of Cambridge, MA. Working with Modo allowed a team led by Director of IT Web Services Jim Wyse and IT Project Manager Lisa Moriarty to perform its high-tech magic and begin piecing the app together. Developing a mobile app is very different and a more specialized process than creating a website, but Jim and Lisa’s team quickly got the app online and available to UMass Boston’s very tech-savvy student body.

When the UMass Boston mobile app was first introduced it was, as Wyse admits, “static,” meaning it couldn’t easily be updated with new functionality. So, it was a very positive development when Michael Metzger, Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, entered the scene. Michael described what a mobile app means to students by saying, “It is a world that they live in,” and notes that since the UMass Boston website must serve the school’s entire constituency, it’s critical that the mobile app focus on the unique needs of current students. It is that philosophy that has driven the mobile app’s development since.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the campus to remote learning in Spring 2020, Ray Lefebvre, Vice Chancellor and CIO, realized that students might need the mobile app now more than ever. He invited Metzger and the Marketing and Engagement team to work with Wyse and Moriarty to create a new version of the mobile app—designed by students, for students. And with the support of Student Affairs, Marketing, and the IT front office, Jim realized “we had to up our game,” and make, as Michael put it, “a new student-centered version of what the mobile app could be.” So, the team embarked on creating what was called version 2.0.

Metzger and Moriarty arranged student-focused user group meetings and gathered information to be eventually used for the new mobile app. Wyse, using a process he calls “progressive enhancement,” makes sure the mobile app’s existing features are continually fine-tuned to ensure optimum functionality. The next stage is deciding what new features would be most useful and planning the next series of upgrades.

Yet as Metzger describes, there is more to a university’s mobile app than just usefulness. Having a mobile app signifies something about an institution. Call it status if you like, but there is now an expectation among students and other affiliated persons that a modern, urban research university should have a modern and useful mobile app. They are also marketing tools and are very helpful for an institution to present its self-image to the public, or perhaps to prospective new students.

But whatever purpose the new UMass Boston Mobile App serves, students, faculty, and staff can know that it will be technologically state-of-the-art and meet our students’ needs as well as any mobile app can, because it will always be designed by students, for students.