It's Your U, It's myU
By Lauren Marsh
The myU portal, a customizable Web application that delivers personalized information to targeted audiences, is changing how information is delivered at the University. On any given day, over 10,000 people enter the Portal to access class Web sites, personalized calendars, e-mail, or any number of journals and newspapers that they've selected themselves. But did you know that the Portal also features a set of robust collaboration tools? Anyone with a University ID (x500) can create his or her own Web pages on the Portal. The Portal's versatility lies in the fact that the owner of a Web page can control who has access to each individual item on the page.
The Portal is sponsored by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. Billie Wahlstrom, vice provost for distributed education and instructional technology, has responsibility for the Portal and, with the support of the TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) Team, has pushed it toward robust functionality.
Administrative Support
This versatile tool was key in one of the University's most ambitious collaboration projects to date. In the fall of 2005, 34 strategic positioning task forces were created to make recommendations as to how the University will achieve the goal of becoming one of the top three research institutions in the country. Task force members came from departments and offices across the University system and from outside of the University as well.
Merry Rendahl, a former member of the TEL Team, worked with Portal managers Scott Barnard, Sandra Ecklein, and Bob Rubinyi to set up the original Portal pages for all 34 strategic positioning task forces. She also supported the academic task force for undergraduate reform: writing and saw firsthand how the Portal facilitated a collaborative research and writing project.
The writing task force members used the Portal to collaboratively draft their recommendations and to share information, while still protecting sensitive material. According to Merry: "Some of the information that we wanted to share-for instance, [about] enrollment and funding-couldn't be widely shared so we restricted some sections of the page even within the group." From their Portal page, the task force members also used the Calendar tool to coordinate busy schedules, the Poll tool to gather information, and the Discussion tool to conduct asynchronous discussions. In addition, all members were able to contribute to a library of online resources and to annotate these links.
Staff, Student, and Instructor Support
As a TEL Team staff member, a student, and now a full-time doctoral candidate and instructor in rhetoric, Merry also has used the Portal to support her own work. She and Scott Barnard used the Document tool to get input on drafts of Portal help documents and to keep track of different versions. She also used it to make her master's thesis available to her committee, to keep track of different drafts, and to attach comments. She continues to use the Portal as a personal storage space for files, so she has access to them wherever she is-on campus or off. She is exploring using the Portal to involve parents or other community members in class discussions. She also has used the Poll tool to get useful information from students. Regardless of where she is or what hat she's wearing, she has learned that myU can help her get things done.
Related Resources
- To learn more about how members of the campus community are using the Portal to improve administrative efficiency, facilitate the strategic positioning process, and provide customized information to students, see Collaboration and Community-Building with myU.
- To learn more about what a portal is; see screenshots of customized myU home pages for extension educators and Class of 2008 students; access a bibliography of articles about the use of portals in educational settings; and follow links to related campus resources and a UMConnect Meeting recording of a March 2, 2005 TEL seminar about the Portal, see Using the myU Portal.
