The new 'UD&me'

Since the beginning of the year, students at UD have been asked to explore and evaluate a new web portal designed to make the resources of the UD web available in a personalized style that better serves their individual needs.

UD&me is drawing praise, along with suggestions for how it might be enhanced.

Located at [http://uportal.udel. edu/], UD&me is now the preferred student entry point to the University of Delaware Web. It aggregates many information resources from a wide range of disparate sources.

Students log in with their IDs and PINs and then have access to a range of academic information, including their course and final examination schedules and official records. Financial information, including their semester bills, as well as financial aid and the status of their UD1-FLEX accounts, also is presented.

In addition, UD&me offers selections of features from UDaily, UD's 24/7 news service, including notices of on-campus news, weather, events and classified listings, plus the latest news from around the world. Other special features include a section called "My Sticky Notes" where students can keep special notes to themselves and a spot where students can maintain customized lists of web bookmarks.

Carl Jacobson, director of Information Technologies Management Information Services, said the design for UD&me, as well as its content, reflect a continuing collaboration of staff and student input that began with the establishment of UD's current SIS+ student information service in 1993.

"Our web designers have more student web design experience than any in the world," Jacobson said. "We were the first to provide student web services, and in addition to their expertise, we employ student designers and developers. We also engaged student focus groups through a technical writing class in the English department."

The concept of a student portal was pioneered by such schools as the universities of California at Los Angeles and the University of Buffalo. The software that makes the program possible, "uPortal," was developed by a number of institutions, including UD, which received a $770,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to provide project management and coordinate development efforts, Jacobson said. UPortal is now used by more than 60 institutions in seven countries, Jacobson said.

Since UD&me was announced to the UD community on Jan. 7, many visitors to the portal have used the "Tell us what you think" button to offer their comments and suggestions for additional site options.

"UD&me is excellent. It's a brilliant idea that will be fully utilized by students."

"It's great to have such easy access to so many features of the UD web all from one location." ?

"It eliminates a lot of annoying click through."

"I think the idea of having library book records and final exam schedules linked to it is fabulous."

"I think UD&me is wonderful! It gathers all of the relative information for a student on one web site. So, instead of pressing the back button on my browser to look up a different topic, I can just go to UD&me and stay on one page! Thank you and keep up the good work."

Changes planned for the near future include "Books I have checked out," "WebCT" and "Web mail," as well as faculty and staff options.

"The faculty portal design is complete and development will begin in the spring," Jacobson said. "We also will have a staff version."

JERRY RHODES