Mobile Oxford and Molly are open source mobile applications developed at Oxford University. Molly aggregates data from multiple sources like directories, maps, and libraries to provide a unified interface for features like contacts, locations, and library search. It has a RESTful API and supports various formats and devices. Mobile Oxford is an implementation of Molly customized for Oxford University that provides services like campus maps, events, and library resources to students and staff through a mobile web interface.

1. Mobile Oxford and Molly
Alexander Dutton
Oxford University Computing Services
13 July 2010

2. “Demonstration Mobile Applications”
Erewhon

3. “Demonstration Mobile Applications”
Erewhon
Mobile Oxford

4. m.ox.ac.uk

5. PLACES
Multiple geo sources,
Open Street Map,
HTML5 etc

6. CONTACTS
Sysdev XML interface/LDAP
or screen scraping

7. LIBRARY SEARCH
Z39.50 (library protocol),
OpenStreetMap, 3rd Party GIS

8. Universal Search
Regex pattern matching for ISBNs, Bus Stops and
interfaces with our Google Search Appliance.

9. Realtime Information

10. RESTful API
Every page may be returned as HTML, XML, JSON, and YAML.
Use e.g. “?format=xml” or content negotiation.
We support JSONP for other webapps.

11. Other ideas/work in progress
More Sakai tooks
Walking/Cycle Routing
Short Course Bookings
Live train times
College Meal Bookings
Location based study group organiser
Augmented reality layer
Further social networking integration
Local city event listings
Fully AJAX interface
Official Traffic cameras
Many more!

12. Data Flow Diagram (Simplified)
etc. phones
under 100USD
Molly as ‘Mobile Oxford’
Feature phone UI
OSS
Oracle Student System
Web User
Lots of Data Sources
Data Aggregation
Oak and Manipulation Interface
Directory Service
Layer
OxPoints RESTful API
Geo-Spatial Database
Smartphone UI
Oxford iTunes U Integration
Native
Oxford Library Information Service
Other
Open Applications Applications
Street Map
And More...

13. Molly, the open source project
Hosted on SourceForge
Developer and implementor mailing lists
All development in public in a Git repository
Hoping to develop ‘providers’ for other common systems
Currently being implemented at Oxford and Brookes
Aiming to directly compete with commercial alternatives (e.g.
campusM and Blackboard Mobile)

14. Links
Molly:
http://mollyproject.org/
irc://irc.freenode.org/#molly
Mobile Oxford:
http://m.ox.ac.uk/
mobileoxford@oucs.ox.ac.uk
@mobileox