clearTXT Academic Text Messaging System – Project Charter and Proposal

January 22, 2008

Written by: Eric Kunnen

Distance Learning and Instructional Technologies

 

OVERVIEW

Because communication, connection, and collaboration are central to teaching and learning, text messaging offers a unique and powerful channel for student to student and instructor to student interaction. At GRCC, one of the primary systems for providing an online communication environment for students, staff, and instructors is Blackboard.

While the traditional tools in Blackboard provide a unique set of communication capabilities, mobile communication, specifically text messaging is currently not included with the system. At the same time, mobile technologies such as text messaging are becoming a significant and highly desired technology. The following quotes highlight this need in education today:

“College officials around the country find that a growing number of students are missing important messages about deadlines, class cancellations, and events sent to them by e-mail because, well, the messages are sent to them by e-mail.” - Chronicle of Higher Education, October 6, 2006

“More than 90% of college students own and carry mobile phones.” – Mobility in Education Listserv

“In a 2006 survey by Student Monitor, students rated Text Messaging as more “in” than going to clubs and bars, instant messaging, coffee, working out, MySpace.com, digital cameras, and going to movies.” – 2006, Student Monitor

“Higher education is facing a growing expectation to deliver services, content and media to mobile and personal devices.” – 2008 Horizon Report

“Students are text messaging left and right, and it's one of the quickest ways to get key information to them on an immediate basis," said S. Daniel Carter, the organization's senior vice president. "It keeps students safer. It's that simple.” – 2007, The Roanoke Times Article on Virginia Tech

As indicated in the graph below, a recent poll on the Blackboard Community System portal suggests that over 53% (1361) students have indicated that they would prefer to receive GRCC communications via mobile text messaging. 



 

In short, this proposal seeks to extend the teaching and learning communication capabilities to include text messaging through a Blackboard Building Block called clearTXT.

What is clearTXT? clearTXT is a secure, easy-to-use, information delivery system that enables faculty, staff, and student to receive the information they want, the way they want, wherever they are, regardless of the device. Emergency alerts, class announcements, schedule changes, campus news, and other information can be delivered to mobile phones, email, and computer desktops through the clearTXT system.

In addition, clearTXT currently powers our existing crisis management system here at GRCC. In fact, it has been used in the recent past for college weather closings, bomb threats, and major upgrades to our enterprise applications that impact students, faculty, and staff. There are currently 813 students, faculty, and staff signed up with the clearTXT service.

In summary, this proposal seeks to extend the capabilities of clearTXT through a budget request to upgrade to the Ubiquity version of clearTXT. clearTXT Ubiquity provides the ability:

1) To seamlessly integrate with GRCC's Blackboard environment through Blackboard Building Blocks.

2) To easily setup text messaging integration with Blackboard.

3) To provide automatic course messaging with Blackboard.

4) For instructors to send a text message to all their students in their course.

5) For instructors to send a text message to certain groups of students in their course.

6) For instructors to view the students that have chosen to receive messages broken down by course.

7) For instructors to generate a course announcement using their mobile phone.

8) For students to personalize and choose which courses or groups, and in what format (rss, cell phone, email, desktop alert, instant messaging client, or desktop ticker), they would like to receive course messages from.

9) For instructors to create an announcement for their course while also generating a text message.

10) For students to create their own text messaging groups for studying with their classmates.

11) For students to receive a text message (email, instant message, desktop alert, or desktop ticker) notifications when new: announcements, assignments, calendar events, or grades are posted by their instructor. And have this capability be set per course.

clearTXT Ubiquity will extend our communication capabilities for both emergency and teaching and learning related activities right from within our easy to use Blackboard environment.



AUDIENCE

This document is written for the campus at large, with special focus on the following functional areas, key contacts, and stakeholders:

  1. Blackboard Learning System

    • Professors, Students, and Organization Leaders

      1. clearTXT can be used in all courses, announcements, events and other academic related communication.

  2. Crisis Management Team

    • Communication Department

      1. As of the writing of this proposal, clearTXT currently powers our crisis text messaging system. Ubiquity will allow the communication team to send targeted and group messages to specific individuals or groups of individuals.

  3. Student Activities Office

    • Student Groups, SAO Department, and Organization Leaders

      1. clearTXT can be used to inform students and student groups of campus life activities and events.

STUDENT SCENARIO

As a student, Josh always carries his cell phone. He has it with him in the classroom and while commuting to and from campus. Since Josh has to travel from Lansing to attend classes on GRCC’s downtown campus, he has to leave his home at least an hour and half early since traffic and parking are often a problem.

About 10 minutes after he left his home, he received a text message from GRCC’s crisis communication team that the campus was forced to close due to an freezing rain storm that was moving through the area. Josh was happy to receive this message since he could turn around at the next exit instead of driving all the way to campus only to find that his class was cancelled. Josh also got an email of the cancellation notice.

As he arrived back home, he noticed that he receive another text message from his instructor. This text message was actually created by an announcement that the instructor posted in his Blackboard class. The announcement dealt with a group assignment that was due on Friday. Since his class was cancelled, he decided to send a text message to his group to see if they could meet at Starbucks that evening.

clearTXT Ubiquity was helpful to Josh since he was able to receive timely messages on his mobile device.

PROFESSOR SCENARIO

Greg is an instructor who understands that his students communicate through text messaging. He sees them use their cell phones before and after class to keep in touch with friends and to catch up on the latest news through their mobile web browsers.

Greg recently used the clearTXT message tool to inform students that class was cancelled because he was sick, however today, he wants to notify students of a special program that is airing on PBS. Greg logs into his Blackboard course, creates and announcement and submits it. Instantly, the announcement is not only available in his Bb course, but all the students in his class also get a text message reminder.

Susan, a student in his class also gets an instant message and an email, since she doesn’t have a cell phone, but she does have a computer and uses AOL’s instant message tool. It’s last minute, but Greg feels that the program on PBS would be worthwhile for his students to watch.

STAFF/COMMUNICATIONS SCENARIO

The crisis management team learns that there is a problem with the ventilation system in the ATC. They don’t need to evacuate the building, but they wanted to notify the faculty and staff that work and teach in the ATC. Instead of sending out a system wide emergency notification to all 15,000 students, faculty and staff, the communication team selects the ATC group using the clearTXT Ubiquity group tool and sends out the message to only those faculty and staff that are a member of the ATC message group.

In addition to text messages to key faculty and staff, the ATC Open Computer lab monitors instantly display a popup message from the communication team that informs students working in the lab, that the smell of the air is caused by the air conditioning and it is not a cause for alarm, and that the building doesn’t have to be evacuated.

STRATEGIC COLLEGE CONNECTIONS

The needs for text messaging connects to the GRCC 2008 Mission, Vision, Values, and Ends statements under the following key areas:

1)     GRCC Values of Service, Innovation, and Responsiveness
These GRCC values match well with clearTXT Ubiquity. Students, faculty, and staff will see enhanced response and service using an innovative communication strategy.

2)      College Action Plan 2.1.3
clearTXT Ubiquity is related to the 2.1.3 CAP which describes developing and implementing a tactical technology plan that maximizes our ability to use technology to support learning.  Ubiquity provides a significant enhancement in the ability to leverage communication technologies for crisis communication and to support teaching and learning with the Blackboard Learning System.

3)      “2005 - Designed for Learning” Strategic Technology Plan
The plan, developed by GRCC in partnership with Campus Works, describes several key milestones for GRCC to achieve greater success in the deeper use and integration of technology into teaching and learning.  Specifically, the Fourth Learning College Principle mentioned in this plan is related to providing and assisting learners to form and participate in collaborative (group) learning activities.  The clearTXT Ubiquity system provides an effective means by which groups of students can interact and collaborate electronically by easily with each other for not only group projects, but also for student organization events sponsored by the Student Activities Office.  In addition, students can create their own groups and join other text messaging groups.

4)  Best Practices
According to “IMPLEMENTING THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES: Technology as Lever” by Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann, best practice includes the following activities: 1) encourages contact between students and faculty, 2) develops cooperation among students, 3) uses active learning technologies, 4) gives prompt feedback, 5) emphasizes time on task, 6) communicates high expectations, and 7) respects diverse talents. 

The clearTXT Ubiquity system allow students and faculty to 1) extend their communication capabilities by leveraging text messaging for course communications,  and 2) enables students to work together collaboratively on projects through mobile communication channels.

5)  Michigan Quality Leadership Award
In the Michigan Quality Leadership Award Feedback Report, the college was highlighted as a leader in the use of innovative technology to create collaborative, flexible, and individualized learning experiences for our students, employees, and community.  In this statement, GRCC is cited to be using leading edge learning management systems, classroom technologies, and services, while providing seamless, anytime, anywhere access to resources, information, and support.  The clearTXT Ubiquity system is one underlying solution that provides the basis that enables GRCC to provide anytime/anywhere access to campus services and information.

BUDGET

Since clearTXT is currently the only company (related to mobile messaging) that integrates with Blackboard and delivers messages to mobile phones via sms, email, and the desktop I would recommend pursuing the sole sourcing option.

The following budget amounts describe the funding required to acquire the clearTXT system:

Optional:

Annual totals for acquiring clearTXT at GRCC is: (Note: No additional hardware is required.)

SUMMARY

The clearTXT Ubiquity system provides several benefits to our stakeholders.  Students will have an enhanced and more efficient ways to receive information from GRCC, each other and their instructors.  They will be able to increase their engagement through the ability to more effectively collaborate and share with each other as well as feel more connected to information and services at GRCC.

Faculty will have another channel of communication that they can use to create a more efficient and effective learning experience that contributes to student success.

Administrators and the crisis management team will be able to create and send an emergency message that instantly appears to all users, or groups of users in a multitude of communication channel that includes: rss, cell phone, email, desktop alert, instant messaging client, or a desktop ticker.

In short, the clearTXT Ubiquity system and it’s integration with the Blackboard Learning System provides capabilities that contribute to student success, while providing GRCC’s crisis management team with several communication channels that can help to ensure faculty, staff, and student safety.