When the Mobile Strategy Task Force at the University of Texas issued their recommendations last December, they compared themselves with 30 peer institutions.  They placed themselves in the bottom three of existing commitment to mobile support.  They rated Texas A&M in the top three and featured A&M’s home page as one of two examples of excellence.

Technology Services – Student Affairs has been an integral part of helping Texas A&M rise to this level of distinction.  The websites we host and all new custom applications built using our primary framework are designed to be fully responsive on mobile devices.  Buster Neece, one of our application developers, has led this effort within the Division of Student Affairs and has been an important part of A&M’s Mobile Strategy Team.

In a letter of appreciation, Allison Oslund, Assistant Director of IT Administration at Texas A&M, wrote:

[callout font_size=”13px” style=”forestgreen”]Thank you for allowing Buster Neece to participate on Texas A&M University’s Mobile Strategy Team.  The team, formed at the request of Dr. Pierce Cantrell, was charged with surveying the rapidly changing mobile web landscape and putting together a strategy and recommendation for the campus.

After months of research, the team established a mobile strategy centered on users’ ability to access information effectively regardless of device type.  The university now recommends responsive web design as the preferred solution for mobile websites.

In the past year, the team created and launched the Go Mobile website (gomobile.tamu.edu) – dubbed the “gold standard” for a mobile strategy website by many in the industry. …

Our work has been recognized nationally with a Best of Category mobile website award from the ACM Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services.  We also were asked to present at the recent Educause Southwest conference.[/callout]

Of course, the report from the University of Texas had their institution’s tag line at the top of each page: “What starts here changes the world.”  The reality is that it had already started at Texas A&M, and the world has noticed!