CSUN’s mobile app

On Nov. 4, the California State University, Northridge released the second iteration of its mobile app. The new version, which works on the iOS and Android platforms, is full of new features including feeds for news, calendar, social media, videos, photos and emergency info. However, what had the CSU system buzzing when it was first released in August was the original intent of the app — as a portal for students to add and drop courses. If successful, it would have been the first in the system to do so.

The Chronicle of Higher Learning recently highlighted the CSUN app in a story about universities and their approaches to mobile because it was successful. They interviewed Hilary Baker, CSUN’s vice president for information technology and the head of the team that developed the app, about the use and success of the add/drop feature.

“There have been about 16,000 downloads of the app,” Baker said, noting that 15 percent of all use during the first week of classes was concentrated in the class-registration feature. “We get an average of 150 more downloads a day. As our students are about to enroll in classes for spring 2014, we expect to see this particular feature used even more over the next month.”

The app was also noteworthy because it was meant to work seamlessly with CSUN’s new mobile website, a goal which was also successful.

For more: Once Sideshows, Colleges’ Mobile Apps Move to Center Stage (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

CSUN Mobile App