The following is the “Future Function” we are exploring for the addition to the Red Rover system. As always, your thoughts are welcome!
Future Function
A student could text a word to a given number and this word would be added to their tag profile.
They would then automatically be added to a group that a student leader or professor could create. (The system would assume the text message was their “opt-in”.)
Uses
1. A Student group trying to recruit interested students to a leadership training could run a campaign (posters, e-mails, Facebook banners, etc.) with the call to action “send “leadership” to 66936 in the campaign.
When students do it, the student leaders can easily see how many have opted in, and from this, they can see, on a real-time basis, how their marketing is going and when they can stop.
2. Professors could see that some students were having trouble with a given concept. Off the cuff, the professor could say: “You know what? Take some time with this, if you’d like to spend some focused time on polymorphism just text message “poly” to 66936 and I will arrange a time at a coffee shop to do a focus session on this.”
The professor would then login to Red Rover, create the group in one click, and then message everyone (perhaps text message) about where and when the session will take place.
Challenges
1. We see tremendous value in simple quick, single-purpose ad hoc groups.
Should we differentiate between these types of groups and normal groups?
We are concerned about this ad hoc organization requiring too much time for the admin to approve. (Right now every new group needs to be approved by an admin prior to communication functionality.)
We are considering allowing “text message groups” to skip the normal admin approval process and then limiting them to 4 text messages before they require admin approval to go to “full group” status.
This way the ad hoc group can be quick and easy for everyone, without opening up students for non-current communication channels.
Thoughts are welcome!
