Tablets, Apps, and the University: A Rationale for Establishing App Development Centers
Wifredo de Ràfols

Abstract
The advent of the mobile tablet device represents an ecumenical consilience that heralds new possibilities for scholars and scientists to develop and share their research worldwide. The concomitant arrival of electronic bookstores and, in particular, apps and embedded advertising, presents faculty with a new research paradigm that is poised to transform traditional avenues of dissemination, professional advancement, and collaboration. It may also present universities with the opportunity of establishing a new research ecosystem founded on a sustainable business model and spearheaded by app development centers. To fully exploit this new technology, university administrators will have to develop a new institutional mindset about the way they evaluate academic productivity and allocate intellectual capital. Just as in 1878 it was high time American universities began founding university presses, 2011 may be the year to begin thinking about establishing university app development centers.

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