The revamped Boxer Mobile app has been running now for three years. In those three years, the success of the app has made the team who run it famous in the tech world. Seniors Katie Lightcap and Dylan Wells, and juniors Riki Rivera and Charlie Davis, are the team responsible for running the Boxer Mobile app.
According to Lightcap, the app has 296 current users, which translates to 21.6 percent of the undergraduate population at Pacific University.
“Most large schools have an app usage rate of 30 percent,” Lightcap said. “So for a campus of our size, where the numbers are at is a good place for us to be.”
However, the end of the university’s contract with the app’s platform provider, Korogo is nearing, probing the app team to find a way to keep it alive.
“We are going to be getting rid of this particular version of the app and move all content from this app to another,” Lightcap said. “We are not getting rid of the app, but switching platform providers.”
The new provider, Guidebook, is the same company that helps run admissions pages and apps. Guidebook is the platform company that the University of Oregon uses for its own mobile app.
“One of the main factors for us switching from Kurogo to Guidebook will be that we will save $15,000 in the switch,” Rivera said.
Rivera and Lightcap agreed the money could go to better uses for students. Another reason for the switch according to Rivera and Lightcap is the fact that Guidebook’s response rate to in app issues on average is much quicker. Faster response times from the provider will make things easier on Wells and Davis who run the technical sides of the app.
Lightcap said for the app itself the layout will be completely different, but the content that goes inside the app will be the exact same as now. The hope is for the app to operate completey within itself and not include links to other apps.
“Currently the app is just links to another webpage, but the goal is to get it to run through one single place,” Rivera said.
Lightcap used the current process to sign into Moodle using the app as an example. She clicked through three different windows after leaving the app. With Guidebook the Moodle sign in will be easier.
“It will even be able to offer admission services as well, so we are trying to work and consolidate the two of us into one app and get it running together,” Rivera said.
The full app switch will not be taking place until fall 2018, but the beginning transitions will take place in the spring of 2018. Lightcap and Rivera are looking to students for feedback on the app. They are also searching for students to train to take over the app once this team is gone.
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