mobile access

Monday 20 December 2010 04:06 pm

Since we introduced the mobile friendly version of SPIDER around August time, the number of phone based browser page visits has increased around 10-20x. In Sep 2009, phone visits accounted for a mere 0.11% of all page visits, compared to Sep 2010 with 2.08%. Similar figures are seen for Oct (0.14/ 2.49), November 0.23/3.04) and are looking to continue with an upward trend for Dec (0.36% in 2009, 4.42% so far in 2010). These overall visits are small when compared to the desktop browser with IE ~53%, Firefox ~23% and Chrome with ~13% of visits, though they compare to Safari desktop users (5.96% in Dec 2010 to date). However, what makes this interesting is the number of users who access the site using mobile devices. In Sep 2010, 366 different users (5%) accessed the mobile content. This jumped to 1426 in October (17.3%) and higher again to 1662 users in Nov (21.7% of users). December has seen similar figures to November so far with 1399 mobile users (20.8% of users), with a roughly 70/30 student/staff split. These increases month to month for this session tie in somewhat with the release of extra mobile tools as the session has progressed.

These figures are quite interesting, with roughly 1 in 5 SPIDER users making use of the mobile site. The large difference in page visits could be explained by the tasks users are trying to perform when on the site on different platforms. Mobile access is likely to be a quick check of news, discussions or marks (and is limited to these and a few other select tools without switching to the 'full' site, which is perfectly acceptable on better mobile browsers), whereas full "desktop" SPIDER is used when the user needs to carry out more involved tasks such as quizzes, submitting assignments, ePDP and the like, with larger page visit numbers as a consequence.  I'll need to investigate further if this theory is actually correct and the task difference between the platforms accounts for the large page visit differences.

This Week's Tweaks

Friday 17 December 2010 01:09 pm

PG DB
reports - can now have a "submission order" to ensure they are completed in the correct way e.g. an order of "supervisor, student, HoD" means that the student cannot complete their section until the supervisor has submitted; users with multiple roles in a dept (e.g. HoD who is supervisor or examiner) can now select which role they are in when submitting reports. Student record - no longer shows 'empty' if a report has not been started, but shows the 'traffic light' warning (all red) for each user who has to complete the report. Start dates are now calculated from registration number if a student record is incomplete when a user goes to access their reports.

radiation database v2
bug fix in monitors. Completed 'limits' management tool. Started to update stock reports to display related limits. Fixed bug in stock reports relating to display of temporary storage.

EEL
fixed bug causing exam results to be shown even if they were not set to be 'live' (due to changes in display after update for mobile view).

API
added an "API" tool (interface/moodle/api.php) that will take various parameters from a GET url to display a SPIDER tool. Tested with SCRIPT, FMT: sterile & non-sterile lab tool, SPIDER news, SPIDER file manager, Class Category page (Lecture notes), and a SPIDER quiz. Will be easy to add more tools (array of values in script determines which tool to show). Tool displays with navOff/ widgetOff parameters set to hide SPIDER navigation (mostly, some in-class nav is part of the tool, need to work on that). On DEV server just now (so no Shibb auth), but quick test on live in a shibb protected folder handles the auth correctly, so should pass through auth without relogging. Added them as Basic LTI on the myPlace dev Moodle, and worked ok (except it wont launch in a new window, only 'in-moodle' - will need to check with the Michaels to see if that bug can be sorted). At present only launching tools (Moodle >> SPIDER), need to check if Moodle is supplying "launch_presentation_return_url" so can pass back value(s) (SPIDER >> Moodle) so that marks etc can be fired into the Moodle gradebook.

SIPBS v2 website
working on staff page updates and changes to CSS.

Exam paper builder
updated to allow for footer/ headers, and formatting on final pdf paper output

Booking tool
fixed bug that was allowing users to book 'out of service' items via 'other items' drop down lists (out of service items no longer appear in this list).

Decorations are up
SPIDER should now be showing the Xmas variations of the logo, smilies etc. Festive messages can be left via the 'post/ view Christmas messages' link on the home page. Hit reload/ empty your cache if you are still seeing the 'regular' logo.

This Week's Tweaks

Friday 10 December 2010 04:24 pm

Even with the snow, the university being shut earlier in the week, then the 'building eater' snapping away at the Todd wing and pinging stones off our office window today, the tweaks continued...

radiation v2
added "monitors" (add/ edit/ dispose) with reports to view active/disposed and/or calibrations due. Started work on 'limits' tool, which will allow activity limits to be set on a dept & lab basis.

wiki
updated various items on the Dev: pages (core, includes, some detail on inc_top, codePrefs and inc_globals amongst others)

PG DB
fixed a bug causing reports due at 1month to display 0 months on student report and not correctly show status on staff view pages.

captcha
started to implement captcha code for template sites as SCF website has had a lot of 'spam' registrations. Nearly working, but having issues with session names.

quizzes
updated to allow users to add underscore characters (was conflicting with 'secret' characters used for storage of HTML tags).

file manager
"session filter" added on DEV server. Needs testing to ensure it works correctly.

exam paper builder
minor bug fixes and tweaks

Nov Stats

Friday 03 December 2010 04:03 pm

A few stats for this academic session to date

*October login tracking started on 15/10/10

This Week's Tweaks

Friday 03 December 2010 03:30 pm

Assignments
minor bug fix as noted in post on 29/11 to launch confirm view of submitted files in a new window

mobile
updated tools with myExam results, myQuiz results and info>cluster files. Changes to CSS (inc_style_main) to table styles required some minor tweaks to other tools (staff view of exam results, class list) and buttons navigation.

info > cluster files
updated display to use lists instead of tables. Added in 'change ordering' to allow users to drag n drop re-order/sort files (as per class content, uses file_manager/rank_sort_categories).

home_bottom
updated to point to new chat instead of shockwave chat

radiation v2
completed user management tool; created "sealed sources" and "chemicals" management tools. Makes extensive use of new form management functions.

help/dev wiki
minor updates to functions and javascript dev: pages

SIBPS website
technical development completed bar final user acceptance testing

data import
started work on data import of quiz/ exam questions from 'text' sources (e.g. copy/paste from Word) to allow faster data input of existing question banks.

file manager
print view of file/folder structure now availble in file manager.