Contact details

  • Lead name: Andy Ramsden, Head of e-learning, a.ramsden@bath.ac.uk
  • Dept/Service: e-learning
  • Project Duration: until 1st June, 2009

Background

What are you planning on doing and why will SMS texting help?

The e-learning team will be using SMS in three ways during 2008-09.

We will be piloting an SMS alert service. The aim of this service is to offer more choice to people about how they can keep informed about e-learning related news and activities. Current we communicate via email and web pages. However, the new approach will allow people to subscribe to a monthly SMS alert which includes a few headline statements about up coming events, publications etc., and includes a link to the e-elearning monthly news letter. It is expected that the SMS will act as a little nudge for the recipient to visit the web site.

We will be piloting the use of SMS for people to register for our staff development sessions. At the moment they see the posters around campus and then have to go back to their office, access the web and register. However, we will now pilot a SMS sign up, where the person reads the poster then texts our number with the course code and their UoB username. We will then email them a confirmation. This should add value as it will reduce the time delay and the fact many people just forget.

In our larger group presentations will will pilot the use of SMS to gather audience input. For instance, we may ask a question, include the SMS number in the presentation, then encourage the audience to respond and finally unpick their responses in the session. An example of how this has been used by a member of the team is available from http://mobile-learning.blog-city.com/using_twitter_sms_word_clouds_and_audience_response_system.htm

How will this be managed?

There are a number of people in the team. Each person has responsibility for the administration and implementation of their workshops. We will also be running a training session in early September for the team on the software and processes which we will need to follow.

Some of the uses will include texting people urls. To reduce the length of the url we will be using the Tiny URL service that has been developed by the e-learning team.

What questions are you trying to answer?

These pilots will focus on some very basic questions. The e-learning team have not previously engaged with SMS, therefore, we are just interested in evaluating how it works. For instance, will people subscribe to the SMS service? will they stay subscribed? Why do some people prefer SMS sign-ups compared to a web based approach? why do they find value in it? did it make them visit the e-learning news page? Do people sign up to our events via SMS? Will the use of SMS in large group presentations encourage people to use it themselves? Does it actually work with other uses approaches employed in large group teaching? How much time does it take us? what can be automated? Was it worth it? Should we develop the case to use it in 2009-10?