Falmouth is one of first to launch mobile version of website

Monday, 16 November 2009

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University College Falmouth (UCF) is one of the first Higher Education institutions in the UK to launch a mobile friendly version of its website - http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/ - which is now live.

Anyone who accesses http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/ through their phone will see a special version of the site that has been designed to work with mobile phone browsers. Special features include a simplified user interface and faster download.

This new version of the site has been designed by Penzance-based web development company, Altcom, who created the university college's original website, which won an Interactive Media Award for Outstanding Achievement last autumn, together with glowing commendations from the judges.

"Our approach to creating a mobile friendly version of the site was to create a simplified interface whilst ensuring that it still used the same content as the main website, to avoid duplication and additional maintenance," explained Altcom's John Cowles. "Fortunately, the main site is built to web standards in that it separates content, functionality and styling, so we were able to quickly develop and trial a mobile "skin" with simplified navigation," he added. "We are able to detect mobile devices and automatically redirect them to the phone template but at the same time, if users have a great phone for web browsing, they are able to access the full site if they want it."

"We believe that we are amongst the first British universities to develop a mobile-friendly site and quite possibly the very first art and design institution to do so," explained UCF's Director of Marketing & Student Recruitment, Jeremy Whitaker. "As more and more of our potential students are using their mobiles to access the internet, we wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to find out about all that the university college has to offer, in the way that they prefer," he said. "Together with our use of Twitter, podcasts, our much-copied HelpMe forum for incoming students, our online International Student Handbook, and our constantly evolving main website, this initiative is yet another example of how we are staying ahead of our competitors by adopting new web technologies."

For further information about University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213730.

For further information about Altcom, visit http://www.altcom.co.uk/ or contact john.cowles@altcom.co.uk

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012/2013 that will be unique to the South West.

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

Ends

For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792, or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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