12010

12010

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (20 minutes, no formal paper)

Reima Al-Jarf, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, reemasado@msn.com
 * Connecting Students, Faculty and Administrators through Online SMS**

King Saud University (KSU) created a group online SMS service, developed in house, to connect administrators, faculty and students. Through this free service, the rector, deans, department heads and program coordinators send group season’s greetings and notifications to the mobile phones of a selected group of faculty and staff. Instructors can send course notifications to the mobile phones of the students registered in their courses regarding exams and other issues. Some send inspirational quotes.

There are currently 380 SMS groups for department staff, T.A.’s, workshop participants, course enrollees and others.

Students and faculty surveyed indicated that the KSU online SMS service is easy to use. It is faster and more efficient than paper memos and e-mails, especially in emergency situations. Students and faculty can be reached anytime, anywhere and 7 days a week. Unused SMS can be added to the user’s balance. SMS’s are archived. Students’ mobile phone numbers are entered manually once and saved as a group.

However, some faculty indicated that the 200 free SMS’s per month allocated to each instructor are not enough when class enrollees are more than 50. It is not possible to send a reply, a comment, or a query to the sender of the SMS. Sometimes the service cannot be used when it is under maintenance or when there is a technical problem. It is time-consuming to enter students’ mobile phone numbers manually particularly in large classes.

All Audiences online SMS group connection group messages