Dear Colleagues

I have a number of growing concerns regarding various committee talks about the introduction of “mobile technologies” at the Institution, some of which Dom has already touched on. I am strongly against the notion, which I will argue is not cost effective, nor necessarily likely to enhancing the experience for our learners (or staff).

Problems with Mobile Technologies:

1) Operating Systems – Mobile devices need an Operating System (O/S) to run. There are a number of O/S on the market (such as iPhone OSX, Windows Mobile, Google Android), which are not compatible with each other, and support different applications and software. This creates problems, for example, when creating applications specific to any one O/S as they cannot be ported over to a different device running on another system. It is therefore not appropriate to design a specific application for a device as it immediately disadvantages anyone using something different.

2) Standards – If applications are not the way forward, some might suggest using web based software as a workaround. Again, this creates a whole load of other problems as devices often run their own proprietary web browser. Each web browser supports different web standards (e.g. XHTML, HTML 5, CSS) but also different third-party plug-in/multimedia technologies such as Flash, FlashLite, MP4 video, 3GP video, AAC audio, MP3 audio, WMA/WMV. Mobile web browsers are a minefield of inconsistency, which means there will always be some devices that will not be able to access/use any web developments the Institution may create.

3) Video Encoding – Due to the different standards colleagues wishing to publish video materials for students will need to encode video into a number of different formats (e.g. FLV, MP4, WMV). This will lead to teaching staff/central resources spending more time outputting video materials, or create large load on any central encoding services we may offer. As videos are being duplicated there is also a greater need for more and more network storage space, which is not cheap compared to off-the-shelf hard disk drives. Any data stored on the network needs to be secure and backed-up, which has repercussions for network infrastructure (see below).

4) Network Traffic/Infrastructure – the more devices that we have connected to our network, the greater traffic and therefore strain it experiences. If students connect via wifi and begin streaming video from external sources (such as YouTube) this could lead to huge losses in performance, and restrict access to web services during teaching sessions. I have spoken to my network manager and he has mirrored these concerns. We have already struggled with network traffic problems this year as more and more of our students stream video (YouTube, iPlayer etc) and spend hours of their days on social networking sites like Facebook. We would need to increase resilience (at heavy cost) to ensure network performance does not lead to in-class/campus problems.

5) Network Security – at the moment we run rigorous security checks on devices attempting to connect to our network. Endpoint security allows us to log which devices belong to which users, and also scans devices for virus software. Not all O/Ss are recognised so we have limited control over what we do with these. Granting access without scanning could lead to virus infections across the network, which could result in losses of data or malicious intrusions. We must also ensure we know which devices belong to which user, in order to follow up any breaches of acceptable use policies including misconduct or illegal activities.

6) Cost – the cost of making changes to technical infrastructure, re-training staff, and developing mobile applications is extremely expensive. I would have thought given the current economic environment that there is little budget in place to support such as shift in IT / Learning & Teaching direction. Like other departments, IT services have been required to make cuts, which are already limiting the effectiveness of the support we deliver to the rest of the Institution. Without serious investment, we do not have the resources to support mobile technologies.


I would ask colleagues to carefully consider whether introducing mobile technologies will enhance the learning experience for all and to note the significant cost that supporting such an introduction will bring.

Rufus B. Harrington III
Head of IT Services