Information Technology and Communications planners and student leaders unveiled their plan last night for an interactive student portal to the University's Web site.
The plan, discussed at a technology forum sponsored by the Student Information Technology Advisory Committee and ITC, will consist of a Web site designed to give students access to several different forms of individualized information.
"The student portal will provide students with the information central to their everyday lives in one location," said Ben Hallen, student council chief technology officer.
The student portal would give students an easier and quicker means of communication and giving them easy accessto all the information pertinent to their everyday lives, Hallen said.
In its early phase, the Web site would be designed for each individual student and include access to e-mail, class information and a calendar of all the important University events.
ITC staff members said they are unsure of the usefulness of the proposed Web site.
But they hope students will be able to customize their portal, allowing them to include links to organizations or clubs to which they belong.
The portal will give students quick access to information such as meeting times and events of different organizations and alleviate the need for mass e-mails, which flood many students in boxes.
Students will log into the portal on the main University Web site using a personalized username and password much like the current Simeon e-mail program used at the University.
Before the student portal goes online for all University students, the ITC staff members said they plan to setup a pilot program to test the new site.
Lori Willy, vice president of student affairs, said ITC tentatively plans to pilot the program with 1,000 students chosen by ITC as well as one of the residential colleges on Grounds.
The ITC staff's goal is to work out any problems that might arise before the portal goes online for use by all students.
ITC hopes to start the pilot program sometime in early February and have the student portal online before the end of the semester for access by all University students, Hallen said.
The forum also allowed Dr. Robert Reynolds, vice president and chief information officer for the University, to outline the major goals and priorities for ITC in the current semester and over the course of the next year.
Reynolds outlined seven major goals including plans for the Integrated Systems Project, campus-wide information technology facilitation and the innovative Web plans for the student portal.
Reynolds said he wants to improve ITC's ability to facilitate teaching, learning and researching here at the University.
"The forum allowed students to see what projects ITC was working on, and to offer advise on current and future projects," Chair of SITAC Andrew Westbrook said.
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