The mobile apps usage of higher education in Taiwan

Abstract

Mobile apps have had a large impact on many industries including higher education for many years since it emerged. The goal of this research is to deepen our understanding of the mobile apps usage at higher education institutions in Taiwan, and it focuses on three major issues: (a) how many institutions are there in Taiwan adopting mobile apps; (b) what are the popular mobile services in higher education; (c) and whether mobile apps play a more important role than mobile webs in delivering the mobile service on campus. The research process was broken down into few phases. In the beginning, this research searched all the institution-related mobile apps on Apple App Store and Google Play, and determined whether it was owned by an institution based on the decision tree. Next, the classification of mobile services was proposed for analyzing the content of every official mobile app. Last, the institutions which had both mobile apps as well as mobile webs were sorted out, and the difference of mobile services between the two deliveries was compared. The results indicates that less than half of the institutions in Taiwan have their own mobile apps, and the most popular mobile services on apps are general information as well as library services. And it also shows that the services delivered via mobile apps are more abundant than via mobile webs.