Portals in the Integration of Student Services

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Portals in the Integration of Student Services

• UC Enrollment Services Technology Conference
• October 17, 2007

Beth Surrell (UCSD) Sean Dillingham (UCR) Rick
Nornholm (UCR)
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Presentation Introduction

• Two UC Campuses, two different stories
• UCSD a Mature portal user
• UCR a Neophyte portal user
• Discussion topics Questions

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A Portal

• portal (pôr'tl, por'-) n.
• A doorway, entrance, or gate, especially one that
  is large and imposing.
• An entrance or a means of entrance the local
  library, a portal of knowledge.
• A website considered as an entry point to other
  websites, often by being or providing access to a
  search engine.

from answers.com
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UCSD Objectives

• Organize around services
• Target content to student needs/interests
• Review business process for applications
• Integrate transactions with content and policy
• Promote campus events and news
• Incorporate all Student Affairs websites into
  portal via content manager

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Campus-wide Input

• Student Affairs/Business Affairs Partnership
• Built on successful campus business portal
• Executive Committee
• Co-Directors (Student Affairs Technical)
• Technical Team
• Stakeholders Committee

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Technical Support

• Vignette Portal
• Vignette Content Manager
• Unix / Solaris web farm for applications
• Applications written in java servlets
• Some original programs still in perl
• Shibboleth authentication

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Student single-sign-on
ACT developers (central office)

• Academic History
• Schedule of Classes
• WebReg
• Class Planner
• Class List
• Degree Audit
• GPA calculator
• Order transcripts
• Order verifications

• Career Portfolio
• View/Pay Bills
• Parent authorization
• Financial Aid
• Waive health insurance
• Order Parking Permit
• Update address
• View holds

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• Other campus developers
• Campus e-mail
• Virtual Advising
• Degree/Diploma application
• Student organization registration
• Off campus housing
• Port Triton jobs

• Other audiences
• Prospective students
• View application status
• Submit SIR/SLR
• Housing application
• Orientation
• Parents
• View/pay bills
• E-bill notification

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New ucsd.edu

• First update since 2000
• Similar process of defining project and gathering
  campus support
• Campus portal using Vignette
• Redesign impacting TritonLink and Blink
• Student involvement to enhance site

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UCRs Current Web Architecture

• Top level site no CMS, just custom Web sites
• Family of UCR sitesall different look,
  different technologies platforms
• EM (all VCSA) uses CMS
• EM has my.ucr.edu portal - prospects and
  applicants

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UCRs Future Web Architecture

• Top down implementation approach- lead by UCR
  executives
• Top level sites for external audiences - CMS
  Omni Update
• Portals for internal audiences - uPortal,
  my.ucr.edu
• Web applications can be stand-a-lone or its
  functionality can be included in a portal.

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UCR Student Portals

• MyUCR
• Portal for Prospective Students and Applicants
• Launched in 2001

• Enrolled Student Portal
• No centralized portal currently exists
• Discovery and design project underway
• Collaboration between Student Affairs and Central
  Campus IT

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What is MyUCR?
Shepherd prospective students through the
admissions process
Market UC Riverside to prospective students
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UCR Student Portals

• MyUCR
• Portal for Prospective Students and Applicants
• Launched in 2001

• Enrolled Student Portal
• No centralized portal currently exists
• Discovery and design project underway
• Collaboration between Student Affairs and Central
  Campus IT

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What are we trying to achieve?
Who is our target audience?
What are our users needs and expectations?

• Increase student success and retention
• Increase brand perception of UC Riverside and
  deepen students engagement

• UCR undergraduate students

• Landscape Analysis
• Focus group interviews
• Testing offerings and prototypes with users

Create a Strong Value Proposition
User Focus
User Research
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How do I find the information that I care about?
Browse
Search
Share
Paradigm
Content Aggregation
Search Engines
Social Networking
Technology
Yahoo
Google
Facebook
Destinations
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Students Expectations

• Emotional experience more than mere process
• Unprecedented level of control over how they
  consume services and information (ability to mix
  and remix content)
• Co-creators of information and relevance, not
  mere consumers
• Information discovery through crowds, friends, or
  incidental networks rather than through managed
  hierarchies

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Case Study Harvard University
Harvard currently hosts a traditional university
portal implementation.
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Case Study Harvard University

• Crimson Connect
• Built using the free Netvibes service
• Student-developed, Harvard-specific features
• Leverages off an ecosystem of thousands of other
  services (Yahoo, Hotmail, NY Times, Amazon,
  MySpace, etc.)
• All integrates into a students personalized page.

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Facebook makes it easy to connect with other
students at your university.
Compelling Experience Social Networking
Information about what you and your friends are
doing online bubbles up to the surface.
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Facebook Statistics

• 85 percent of students at 4-year U.S.
  universities have a Facebook account
• 17,043 users currently identify in Facebook as
  UCR-affiliated
• More than half of active users return daily
• Users spend an average of 20 minutes on the site
  per visit
• Facebook has released a platform that enables
  other organizations to deliver their services
  inside the Facebook environment.

!
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Anatomy of Facebook Applications
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Anatomy of Facebook Applications
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Our goals for an Enrolled Student Portal
Increase student success and retention
Increase brand perception of UC Riverside and
deepen their engagement
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Current Enrolled Student Portal Strategy

• Hybrid approach UCR-hosted portal and
  complimentary Facebook application
• Both applications will provide single sign-on
  access to campus systems (e-mail, GROWL,
  Blackboard)
• UCR academic and administrative departments will
  be able to establish content channels that
  users can subscribe to
• Facebook application will provide dashboard
  view of critical information from campus systems
  and drive traffic back to UCR properties
• UCR-hosted portal will deliver richer, more
  complete experience
• Still lots of unanswered questions. . .

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MyUCR Facebook
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• Questions and
• Discussion Topics

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Discussion Topic

• How much student personalization should be
  provide by the campus portal?
• Where is the line drawn?
• How much of the portals content should be
  provisioned to the outside?
• Should student organizations participate in
  developing content for the portal? Should this
  be managed? How?
• What student participation?

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Discussion Topic

• What is the objective of your campus portal?
• Is there a common understanding of what the
  portal is or should be across campus?
• Is there an official statement of objectives?
• Is there an official policy on how the portal
  will be governed?

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Discussion Topic

• What research supports your campus portal?
• Development of business requirements?
• Analysis of feature list?
• Any student input?
• Behavior studies?
• Usability studies?

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Discussion Topic

• What is a Portal?
• There are various definitions
• UC implementations are different
• Is there a common set of features in a campus
  student portal?

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Discussion Topic

• How comfortable are other UC campuses with
  syndicating their information and extending their
  services into other platforms?

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Goodbye to Portals?
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Traditional IT Model
Platform Mindset

• Design, build and license everything you need
• Closed system
• Users come to you

• Design and build only what you cant integrate
  from others
• Participate in open ecosystem of services
• You go to where your users are