Using the myU Portal
Imagine you are a first-year student moving into your dorm room at the University, and your resident assistant tells you to put your boxes and suitcases back in your car, because everything that you need is already in your room. When you get to your room the furniture is already there, bolted to the floor. All of the clothes you are supposed to wear are in the closet (size medium, although you are wear a small). The walls are covered with athletic posters (although you aren't very interested in sports). A hidden stereo is playing pop music (but you prefer jazz or silence when you are studying). You come to realize that all of the dorm rooms are exactly the same as yours. Some committee decided to do you a favor and tell you how you will live, what you will see, and who you will be, and there are no choices left for you to make.
A traditional Web site offers a similar experience. It presents the same content to everyone, regardless of who you are or what you want to see. But a portal Web site gives you the power to make choices for yourself. You can use powerful tools to create customized content, select news channels, and join online discussions that interest you. With a portal, different organizations also can present customized information to different groups of people to help them succeed in their work or studies. As a result, no two portal views are exactly alike. They are personalized by the publisher and customized by members to meet specific needs.
The University of Minnesota publishes a public portal called myU. University students and faculty and staff members can sign in to it with their University Internet IDs and passwords, and members of the public can create guest accounts. When logged in, they can use the portal to organize and navigate through the 1.6 million pages of electronic resources available from the University. They also can get personalized information, interact with friends and colleagues, and create and distribute dynamic Web content.
The portal offers four key features:
- It is secure.
- It is personalized.
- Members can control their own level of privacy.
- Members can customize many of the items that they see.
For example, people who sign in can utilize the portal's powerful Web page development toolkit to easily create and publish bulletin board discussions, interactive forms, instant polls, shared calendars, and many other kinds of Web-based materials and interactions. They also can view and interact with the materials and interactions created by others in the community, as well as view a variety of news channels from around the world. In addition, users of myU can access important information from dozens of databases around the University in one convenient location.
Seminar
The seminar was held in-person and also broadcast live via UMConnect:
March 2, 2005
12:00-1:30 P.M.
402 Walter Library, East Bank
UMConnect Meeting recording
The moderator and panelists below discussed how they have used the portal:
- as an intranet for extension educators,
- to build community for the class of 2008,
- to deliver programming in greater Minnesota, and
- to support faculty teaching and research.
Moderator:
Scott Wilson-Barnard
DMC/OSVPP, Twin Cities campus
Panelists:
Andy Howe
orientation/first-year programs, Twin Cities campus
Rae Montgomery
extension, Twin Cities campus
Bob Rubinyi
extension, Twin Cities campus
Matt Sumera
University Relations/OSVPP, Twin Cities campus
Campus Projects
Information about the panelists' related projects will be published after the seminar.
Bibliography
The following articles may help you understand the use of portals in educational settings.
DeSimone, Albert. "Directory Services: The Foundation for Web Portals." Educause Quarterly 4 (2002): 4–5. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0240.pdf.
The author describes the role database directories play in portals; the interrelationships between people and resources and services; the purpose of authentication; and the role of directories in the personalization of a user's portal. Some suggestions on directory-services standards are included.
Kennedy, David M., Len Webster, Robyn Benson, Di James, and Nathan Bailey. "My.monash: Supporting Students and Staff in Teaching, Learning and Administration." Australian Journal of Educational Technology 18, no. 1 (2002, 24–39. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet18/kennedy.html.
The authors describe an apparently successful design, development, evaluation, and implementation process used to create a portal, but pay more attention to the creation process than to the benefits and challenges of portal implementation.
Ethridge, Robin R., Cynthia M. Hadden, and Michael P. Smith. "Building a Personalized Education Portal." Educause Quarterly 3 (2000): 12–17. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eq/a003/eqm0031.pdf.
The authors describe the characteristics of the Louisiana State University (LSU) Personal Access Web Services (PAWS) portal and issues encountered during its mplementation related to account creation, authentication, and legacy system integration.
Frazee, James P. "Charting a Smooth Course for Portal Development." Educause Quarterly 3 (2001): 42–47. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0134.pdf.
Frazee describes the rubric San Diego State University (SDSU) staff members used to make decisions while creating a portal. They also assess its relative value (it was somewhat helpful, but did not provide answers to all of the questions it was intended to address).
Katz, Richard N. "It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's a . . . Portal?" Educause Quarterly 3 (2000): 10–11. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eq/a003/eqm0038.pdf.
Katz discusses the origins of the term "portal" and some high-level issues related to creating an institutional portal strategy.
Steinbrenner, Karen. "Unlocking ERPs with Portals." Educause Quarterly 3 (2001): 55–57. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0137.pdf.
The author describes how portals can be used to efficiently deliver enterprise system data and better support institutional missions.
Zazelenchuk, Todd W., and Elizabeth Boling. "Considering User Satisfaction in Designing WebBased Portals." Educause Quarterly 1 (2003): 35–40. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0315.pdf.
The authors effectively describe portals and the needs they are intended to meet in higher education environments, the design decisions made about Indiana University's OneStart portal, and a student satisfaction and usability study that identified several characteristics of successful portals, including:
- on-screen instructions;
- task completion efficiency;
- effective screen and information design; and
- interactive feedback.
They also discussed the impact of large quantities of information on a user's experience.
