Collaboration and Community-Building with myU
The University's customizable Web site, the myU portal, is being increasingly used. In the fall of 2005, nearly 58,000 people logged in over one 30-day period. On October 18, just shy of 10,000 people logged in over 24 hours. A sizable majority of these users are students for whom customized home pages have been developed and publicized, such as members of the Class of 2009. But other students and faculty and staff members are logging in as well. The Portal is emerging as a powerful tool to facilitate a variety of administrative tasks, including those related to the strategic positioning process, search committee work, and departmental and collegiate internal communication efforts.
This is because users who don't have programming skills easily can create Portal pages for specific groups of Portal members, as well as use built-in tools to collaborate and share any type of digital file with such groups. These groups include members of search committees, colleagues collaborating on grant applications, task forces working to develop recommendations or policies, and faculty and staff members in particular departments, schools, and colleges sharing information with their students.
For example, the search committee for the dean of the College of Education and Human Development is using the Portal as a password-protected repository of their working documents. Several task forces, including the academic task force for undergraduate reform: writing, AHC Knowledge Management Technology, and College Design: CNR/COAFES/CHE, are posting meeting notes, background documents, and draft versions of reports in the Portal as shared resources and using other Portal tools, like the private discussion board and internal calendar, to complete their tasks. The Academic Health Center (AHC) is using the myU home page to deliver timely, specific, and customized information to students; for example, dermatology students can access information published by the dermatology department, the Graduate Medical Education program, the Medical School, AHC, and University Relations from a single location, a customized myU home page.
Seminar
Please join us 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:
Thursday, March 2, 2006
155 Peters Hall, St. Paul
12:00 p.m.—1:30 p.m.
See the UMConnect Meeting recording of the seminar.
Scott Barnard, a senior educational technology consultant at the DMC, will moderate a discussion among the following panelists:
- Jonathan Binks, Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Twin Cities campus;
- Bob Rubinyi, University of Minnesota Extension Service and Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Twin Cities campus;
- Janet Shanedling, Office of Education, Academic Health Center, Twin Cities campus; and
- others to be announced.
Bibliography
The following readings may help you prepare for the TEL seminar.
Coventry, Martha. "The Digital Doorway to the U: myU Portal Eases Communication and Creates Community." University of Minnesota UMNnews, 21 October 2005. http://www.umn.edu/umnnews/Feature_Stories/The_digital_doorway_to_the_U.html.
Coventry explains what a Portal is and how the myU Portal works. The article includes quotations from a student user and myU sponsors and administrators, as well as links to customized faculty, staff, and student myU home pages.
Digital Media Center. "Using the myU Portal." University of Minnesota, 23 March 2005. http://dmc.umn.edu/spotlight/myu.shtml.
This information was published in conjunction with a spring 2005 TEL seminar about the Portal. It includes an explanation of what a portal is; screenshots of customized myU home pages for extension educators and Class of 2008 students; a bibliography of articles about the use of portals in educational settings; links to related campus resources; and a link to a UMConnect Meeting recording of the seminar.
myU. "PDF Help Documents." University of Minnesota, 2002-2005. https://www.myu.umn.edu/metadot/index.pl?iid=411659.
This page includes links to support documents published in PDF format that describe how to create groups of myU Portal members, set permissions for Portal pages, and set up and use Portal tools.
myU. "myU Help." University of Minnesota, 2002-2005. https://www.myu.umn.edu/metadot/index.pl?id=77358.
This page includes links to step-by-step written instructions and animated demonstrations about how to use the myU Portal.
