The implementation of mobile technologies in higher education: A mobile application for university course advising

Mobile technologies have become the most rapidly growing and adopted technology in recent years. Currently, many higher education institutions are using mobile technologies, due to their portability and accessibility, to support a variety of activities in the education process. Course advising is an important part of the education process and it plays an essential role in students' academic success. However, course advising is a challenging task due to the intensive human effort required from advisors; the unavailability of committed advisors due to other academic commitments; the advisors lack of knowledge; the time-consuming nature of this task; and the unavailability of related information on academic curriculum to the advisors. Nevertheless, such problems make the use of an automated course advising system desirable and helpful. This paper presents the design and implementation of a mobile application for university course advising, called madvisor, that can be used to reduce the time and effort for both the students and advisors during the course advising process at the beginning of each academic semester. The evaluation results of the m-advisor application revealed that informative advices for students can be given on which appropriate courses, that can fit their needs in accordance with the requirements of the student's academic program, to register in the upcoming semester.