Students to have personalized web portals

By Natalie Plosky

Daily Staff Reporter

This fall, students will be able to access the University's new personalized portal Web environment, my.umich.edu. The site uses the same technology as commercial portals offered by Yahoo!, Excite, and America Online, but with a more University-based focus. The new Website is not intended to replace the existing University Gateway, but rather supplement the Gateway's capabilities.

The my.umich.edu Project, also known as the Janus Project, began in fall 1999 at the request of University Provost Nancy Cantor, and is sponsored by the Office of the Chief Information Officer. The goal was to create a personalized Web environment to provide customizable information, services and resources for students.

Project members worked with MSA to determine what services to provide through the Website. The Janus Project conducted intercept testing to gather student opinions and currently is performing usability testing with orientation students and staff. Student testing of my.umich is expected to continue into the fall.

Project member Linda Place, co-manager of the University's Website coordination, explained that student response has been positive so far.

"Just by talking to students who have had an opportunity to get into the environment and look around a little bit, they are very excited about everything being together," Place said.

The unique characteristic of the Website is the wide accessibility of its resources. Once a student has entered their uniquename, the student will be able to access their customized resources from anywhere in the world. The only requirements to use my.umich are a uniquname, rights to the University's basic computing package, a computer with an Internet connection, and a Web browser.

The target audience of the fall lauch of my.umich is undergraduate students, but project leaders hope to extend the service to prospective students and eventually into the non-University community.

Initial services available in the fall include personalized bookmarks that can be accessed from any computer at any location. Another feature will allow students to post or read classified ads.

The site will offer Web-based e-mail and a personal information manager, to help students maintain a calendar, their course schedule and a to-do list. The Website will also offer a news service to students, displaying headlines from campus news resources like the University Record, and offer links to specific articles.

Help resources for services provided by my.umich will be available and there will also be a feature to allow students to submit comments and questions about the site and to suggest new features.

Project co-manager Gavin Eadie, director of strategic planning for the office of the CIO, stressed the importance of student feedback to the ongoing development of the site.

"My.umich will never be 'done', it will be constantly improving," Eadie said. "As soon as we start to get (my.umich) out there and have people using it, it's going to be really important to get feedback, because what we do next will be entirely driven by what people want."

Project co-manager Gordon Leacock, director of planning for ITD, hopes to see more services and resources available to students through my.umich, but noted this possibility is limited to the cooperation of other academic and administrative units.

"A lot of what we're able to do depends on the willingness of the rest of the University to partner with us," explained Leacock.