Proposal for Ellingsburg University Campus Portal

1. Proposal for Ellingsburg University Campus Portal Presented By: Nichole M. Fest Michael A. Freyaldenhoven II Brian M. Glick Kasi L. Jones University of Central Arkansas My.EU.edu

2. Abstract Ellingsburg University needs a campus system upgrade. In order to attract more students to utilize the normal university web presence, we would like to introduce the idea of the Campus Portal concept. A portal is a single place to which the user can log on and be presented with a wide variety of information. Portals can also be customized to the users’ preferences. The users will consist of students, faculty, staff, alumni, prospective students, and visitors.

3. Inception of theCampus Portal • Pioneered by UCLA in 1999. • Followed by University of Washington and University of Buffalo. • Created as an entry point for a college or university. • Provided a centralized source of information and services for any end user of the university. • “5% of universities currently have campus portals. 80% of US. Colleges with enrollments of more than 1,000 students will have a portal by 2005.” (Moskowitz, 2001)

4. Web Presence vs. Campus Portal • University websites have a “viewbook” look as the front page. • Portals allow users to create a front page that is user-friendly and quickly provide them with the information they need. • Having a web presence will contain pointers to other websites and may provide a difficult time for obtaining information. • Portals allow for information to be customized and personalized so users can have it at their fingertips. • Websites serve as a reference. • A portal is a destination site that aims to attract and retain users to create a virtual lifelong community. • Websites allow users to communicate only through email. • Portals allow users to communicate through chat, instant messenger, and email. This will encourage more communication between students, faculty and the rest of the campus community.

5. Web Presence vs. Campus Portal • Provide a channel for targeted information dissemination. • Help build a sense of campus community. • Lower the cost of delivering student services by leveraging the time and effort of users to complete forms online for automated processing. • Gives the ability to serve the campus better by providing the users with the relevant information they need and not the extra stuff. “We believe that the value of a portal to a campus is that it can be used to engage constituent groups, empower them with access to information resources and communication tools, and ultimately retain them by providing a more encompassing sense of membership in an academic community.” (Looney and Lyman, 2000)

6. The Need For ACampus Portal at EU According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project report, Internet Goes to College: How students are living in the future with today’s technology: • 86% of college students have gone online. • 85% of college students own their own computer. • 79% agree that Internet use has had a positive impact on their college academic experience.

7. The Need For ACampus Portal at EU • Provide the majority of students who go online with a website they can personalize and call “MyEU.” • Increase the positive impact the Internet has on a student’s college academic experience by providing information they need immediately through customizing the “MyEU” site. • Keep the university in competition with the other 80% of colleges planning to have a portal by 2005. • Provide access to all information and services through single sign-on. • Obtain authentication and authorization to all information resources and applications. • Provide single location where users of the university community can perform all business transactions. • Present information and access to services on an individual basis in personalized manner.

8. Campus PortalBest Practices • Provide access to all information and services through single sign-on. • Obtain authentication and authorization to all information resources and applications. • Provide single location where users of the university community can perform all business transactions. • Present information and access to services on an individual basis in personalized manner. • Grant the university experts full control and self-management of appearance and content. • Be free of commercialization. • Be flexible and able to absorb new technology advances and new applications. • Be available to all users 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

9. Campus PortalDesign • According to the article “A River Runs Through It: Considerations and Issues when Evaluating Student Portals” by Kyle Johnson, a portal design is based on 4 criteria: • Quality of Content – Content needs to be constantly updated and provide users with what they need. If it is not then users will quit using the portal. Having content experts could solve this problem. Content experts are people who know most about a certain area and can manage the content for that area. • Quality of Interface – Users need to be able to easily interact with the portal. Along with content experts, we can have interface experts, who will manage the interface of the site.

10. Campus PortalDesign • According to the article “A River Runs Through It: Considerations and Issues when Evaluating Student Portals” by Kyle Johnson, a portal design is based on 4 criteria: • Quality of Infrastructure – Need to make sure that the portal is able to respond to requests and always available. The issues we will need to consider are: bandwidth and throughput, stability, scalability, and location of infrastructure. • Degree of Coupling – Want a loosely coupled system so that parts of the portal can be changed or replaced without necessitating wholesale changes to the entire system. This will allow the experts to work independently on their issues.

11. DevelopingMyEU In developing the MyEU, we need to look at the following questions: • Who should be on the MyEU Task Force? • Should EU buy a personalized, commercially made portal, or should EU design and build their own portal? • How should users log onto MyEU? • Determining the security requirements? • How many channels should there be and what should they consist of? • How will we obtain feedback from MyEU? • How should the portal be organized?

12. MyEUTask Force Members The Task Force should consist of: • Director of Residence Life (Student Affairs Representative) (user and collaborator) • Office of Communications Representative (collaborator) • President of the Faculty Senate (user and collaborator) • Undergraduate Student (user) • University Web Administrator (expert) • Financial Aid Officer (user and collaborator) • Representative from Ellingsburg Chamber of Commerce (user) • Ex-officio – Technology Director (service provider)

13. MyEUTechnology Systems The portal will act as a junction allowing the servers which hold the individual data records to be accessed through a central point, while providing the appropriate mask based on a users’ access level. This can be achieved by utilizing products such as PeopleSoft or SCT Luminis. Users will log onto MyEU through a Single sign-on. A single sign-on allows the user to sign on once for multiple tasks at one sitting. This will eliminate users from logging onto multiple systems. In addition, a single sign-on authenticates the user to the system.

14. MyEUSingle Sign-On What you need to consider with single sign-on?: • How long should users have access to the portal and what should they have access to? – For example, once students graduate, how long should they have access to items like grades and viewing a financial aid award. • Definitions for how long a service will be made available and to whom – Departments need to determine what services they want to offer, how long the service should be available and to what type of user. • Determining licensing agreements with vendors – An agreement with the library could often mean only current students have access to it’s resources. Do you want the other users like Alumni to have the same privileges? • Session management and appropriate timeout periods – If there is no user activity for a certain amount of time, should services like email and financial aid remain active or be logged out immediately.

15. MyEUSecurity Campus portals can face the same risks as a campus network. Therefore they must address the following issues: • Authentication – implementing the single sign-on. • Authorization – users be given permission to access protected information and services. • Data Confidentiality and Integrity – providing access controls and the protection of transmitted data through encryption techniques.

16. Student Accounts Health and Safety My Academics Course Registration, Tuition and Fees, Financial Aid Awards, Transcripts Health Center Appointments, Signing Up for Counseling, Parking Issues Class Sites, Grades, Bookstore, Course Announcements, Submitting Assignments MyEUChannels Channel Links to

17. Campus Life Services Online Services Local/National Services Campus Events, Student Affairs Sites, Athletic Schedules, Dining Menus, Student Newspaper Email, Message Boards, Search Engine, Online Chat Weather, Streamed Content (ABC & ESPN), Bookmarks, Classifieds, Online Shopping MyEUChannels Channel Links to

18. MyEUChannel Benefits • Categorizes services into main areas (i.e. tuition and fees under Student Accounts). • Allows for growth as other services can be easily added to the six main headings. • Invites users to create their own personalized site by highlighting information most relevant to them. • Provides a connection between the university and community. • Allows communication and collaboration to increase between all users. • Delivers information in a more effective and efficient manner. • Make the university more productive and responsive.

19. MyEUFeedback Feedback may be obtained through one of three different areas: top, middle, and bottom of the pages: • Floating Survey – Slide across the top of the screen with a daily question for users to answer. • Comments – Have a comments window on middle left of the page where users can make any comments about the portal. • How’s my portal? – Have a link at the bottom of the page centered with a contact number for users who wish to talk to someone immediately.

20. MyEUOrganization • Have main portal site come up as a default page, however it will be customizable for users according to their preferences. • Have channels across the top of the screen with pull down menus for quick and easy access. • Provide the date, news, weather, and sports below the channels. • Attached is a sample campus portal design after the user logs in (this example will be a student log in).

22. Campus Portal University Examples For examples of actual campus portals, visit the following websites: • University of California, Los Angeles (MyUCLA) http://my.ucla.edu/ • University of Washington (MyUW)http://myuw.washington.edu/ • University of Buffalo (MyUB) http://www.buffalo.edu/aboutmyub/ • George Washington University (MyGW) http://my.gwu.edu/ • Arizona State University (MyASU) https://my.asu.edu/ • Rowan University (Student Campus Portal) http://cp.rowan.edu/cp/ • University of Georgia (MyUGA) https://my.uga.edu • University of Southern California (MyUSC) https://my.usc.edu/

23. Campus Portal Ellingsburg University has the capability to be a liberal arts focused institutional leader. By implementing this Campus Portal concept, you are providing enhanced services and building strong relationships amongst the university community. MyEU is a new concept that will continue developing daily through absorbing new technologies. If you need further information or clarification about our campus portal proposal, please do not hesitate to call us! We appreciate your undivided attention and we look forward to implementing this new and exciting concept. Best Wishes!

24. Campus Portal References Aiken, M. & Sullivan D. (2002). Best Practices in Enterprise Information Portal Adoption: 5 Key Drivers. DM Review. Retrieved February 27, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://dmreview.com/editorial/dmreview/print_action.cfm?articleID5963 Eisler, D. (2003). Campus Portal Security: Access, Risks, and Rewards. Campus Technology Retrieved, February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://www.campus-technology.com/print.asp?ID=7625 Geith, C. & Wagner, C. (2000). Preparing for Campus Portals. Campus Technology. Retrieved February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://www.campus-technology.com/techtalks/events/000330preparing.asp Gleason, B. (2000). Boston College University-Wide Information Portal Concepts and Recommended Course of Action. Retrieved February 17, 2005. from: http://www.mis2.udel.edu/ja-sig/whitepaper.html Is a Campus Portal in UVM’s Future?. (2004). Retrieved February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://www.uvm.edu/cit/IT-news/200409/planning/Portal.html?tp=true Jackson, J. (2001). Uniting The Campus Through An OnlineCommunity: One Example. StudentAffairs Online. Retrieved February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://studentaffairs.com/ejounal /Winter_2001/portals2.htm Johnson, K. (2001). A River Runs Through It: Considerations and Issues When Evaluating Student Portals. StudentAffairs Online. Retrieved February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://studentaffairs.com/ejounal /Winter_2001/river.html

25. Campus Portal References Jones, S. (2002). The Internet Goes to College: How students are living in the future with today’s technology. Pew Internet and American Life Project. September 2002. Looney, M. & Lyman P. (2000). Portals in Higher Education. EDUCAUSE Review. July/August 2000, pp 29-36 Mickool, R. (2004). The Challenge of Single Sign-On. Campus Technology. Retrieved February 13, 2005. from http://syllabus.com/article.asp?id=9194 Moskowitz, R. (2001). Campus Portals: come to higher education: these everything-in-one-place websites can streamline administrative and student services and could save institutions money. Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education. June, 2001. Retrieved February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles.mi)m0HJE/is_3_2/ai_79961317/print Olsen, F. (2002). The Power of Portals More colleges create Web services that can be customized to help students and professors. The Chronicle of Higher Education. August 9, 2002. (48) A32 Technical Background- Portal- IS – The University of Nottingham. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/is/gateway/portal/background.phtml What’s a Portal?. Retrieved, February 13, 2005. from the World Wide Web: http://faculty.Weber.edu/portals/What.htm