New innovation: mobile loyalty in higher education

Abstract

This paper reports on the investigation of an innovative commercial mobile loyalty (mloyalty) system implemented in a classroom at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Being one of four Universities in Cape Town, competing for students, staff and research funding remains a challenge. The underlying concept of this research was to use technology in an innovative way to reward students for academic success. This practice could be perceived as controversial or unethical, but the authors wanted to investigate the effects and uptake of using new technology to serve as a base for future research and possible implementation. Being a university of technology, new innovative ways needs be found to apply technology and adopting new approaches, not available in general learning management systems (LMS). The background to this research will be discussed as well as the ICT architecture deployed. Some encouraging results will be shared. An important aspect to be kept in mind while plotting a way forward is to uphold pedagogical principles.