Washington State University’s myWSU portal, which began early testing in August, will expand services Nov. 1 to approximately 7,500 people. Participants will include instructors on all campuses and students taking classes that use The Bridge and WebCT learning environments. MyWSU will be in full production by January 2004 and available to students, faculty and staff throughout the WSU system.
MyWSU is a personalized Internet environment where users can access customized information by using a Network ID and password for sign-in. My WSU will make it easier to send notices to students enrolled in a particular course, link to online class resources and conduct university business.
Providing feedback
The prerelease period is being used to get instructors acquainted with myWSU and allow them to input data for spring semester courses. Academic and administrative units are encouraged to consider how they might use the current features available in myWSU and what they would like to see added to the portal in the future.
Instructors presently can find Campus Spotlight, official notices and a Web tool for viewing e-mail from the wsunix.wsu.edu mail server. There also is a list of current semester classes. And, after mid-November, a list of classes for next semester will be available. Instructors can experiment as well with posting resources for and sending messages to students in their current classes.
Instructors also should check the accuracy of their class listings and report any problems to their department office so a correction can be made in RONet. Instructors can follow the Instructor Orientation link off of the myWSU project website, at http://www.wsu.edu/portal-project, for help with using myWSU during the prerelease period.
Nils Peterson, portal architect and myWSU project manager, said the portal team is encouraging faculty to explore the prerelease system and enter materials for spring classes.
A new university directive, stated in an Oct. 14 memo from Provost Robert Bates titled “Course Instructor of Record,” details the importance of providing instructional data into RONet.
As of this week, 25 percent of the instructor assignment database was complete. The quick input of this data by department staff is essential to the efficiency and usefulness of myWSU.
“This directive will give important management data to colleges, and as departments input the data to RONet, my WSU will dynamically update itself,” Peterson said.
The portal team hopes departments will get all instructors loaded before Bates’ Nov. 7 target.
Early testing results
Early testing of myWSU included several hundred participants. The upcoming prerelease phase will allow the portal team to gather testing information and feedback for improvements. The gradual addition of users allows for testing of the system under a larger user load. In addition, the portal team is in the process of completing a single-sign-in system from my WSU to My DDP — the website used by Extended University Services to provide services to distance degree students.
The full release of myWSU, with current features, will be open to all faculty, students and staff in spring semester. Additional services and features for faculty and staff, however, will be developed and available over time, including creation of full faculty and staff portals.
Users currently can enter myWSU at http://www.portal.wsu.edu, though it will be moved to my.wsu.edu in the future. People who are not yet authorized to use the portal can learn more about it at http://www.portal.wsu.edu.
