Finding your way to and around UC Davis could get easier next academic year with the construction of a new cybergateway called MyUCDavis.
Faculty members and students will be able to log onto the Web site where their e-mail, campus news and messages, course information, grades, and other information and online services will be just a click or two away.
Plans to create a MyUCDavis site for staff members are also on the drawing board.
UC Davis will become the second UC campus after UCLA to have such a portal, a site that functions like a doorway to numerous other sites and one that can be personalized to fit each user's needs.
Although MyUCDavis will offer new course-management and Web-page design tools for faculty members as well as a campus message center, the innovation of the site is not so much in new services.
Instead, designers and others familiar with the site say one of its primary benefits lies in its convenience: It will bring together many existing UC Davis online applications in one virtual place.
It will also make such services more portable: Faculty members and students will be able to use their Kerberos password to connect to the site via a secure login from anywhere they have access to the Internet and a browser.
"The purpose of the project is to provide easier navigation of UC Davis services via the Web," says Joyce Johnstone, who oversees an Information Technology team that is building the site for three campus sponsors.
Johnstone said the idea for the project goes back about three years, but remained on the shelf until state Instructional Technology funds became available this year.
Sponsoring the project are Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies Patricia Turner, Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Bob Franks and Registrar Jack Farrell.
"We think it will be a great service to students and faculty," said David Johnston, senior associate registrar.
The site is not intended to replace UC Davis' home page, which will remain the primary online entryway to campus.
Promises course-management tools
A prototype for a fictitious faculty member, "William Smith," includes links to e-mail, the library, campus messages, Degree Navigator and his course Web pages.
Under a course-management tab are options for building a simple Web page or linking to an existing page for courses, viewing class rosters, creating a course e-mail list or chat room, and filing student grades.
A version for students is similar but offers the ability to add or drop classes, check financial aid, view unofficial transcripts and see whether their fees are paid.
Users will be able to customize their own pages, turning channels on or off and setting their own bookmarks for other Web sites.
A committee made up of students and faculty members designed the site in February and March. Construction, which began last month, is expected to go through the summer.
A pilot version will be tested in early fall, and a full roll out to the campus is expected in late fall. Timing for launching a staff portal has yet to be determined.
Sneak previews at the Arbor
Presentations for faculty members and students will be held Thursday, May 25, and Tuesday, June 6, at the Arbor faculty center for teaching and technology, located in 174 AOB4. Each session runs from 2:15 to 3:15 p.m. Other sessions are planned this summer.
A similar portal at UCLA, called MyUCLA, has been popular, hosting over 3.5 million sessions since its introduction in October 1997, said Eric Splaver, director of the campus's College Information Services.
More than 90 percent of freshmen and sophomores visit their page at least once a week, Splaver said.
UCLA began expanding its portal for faculty use this year, and plans to offer online grading next fall, he said. "We hope to broaden our supported user-base to include parents and alumni in the future."
Kevin Roddy, UC Davis Arbor director and a medieval studies lecturer, praised the MyUCDavis project team for consulting widely on campus in designing the site and for making its use optional.
"In general, I think they're doing a very good job," he said. "They're layering it nicely."
While students may opt to use many of the channels available through the portal, Roddy predicted that most faculty members would like their site to be simple, with just a few channels related to their courses, e-mail and research.
Links to course Web pages
Harry Matthews, a medical professor and chair of the Academic Computing Coordinating Council, said he personally does not plan to use the course Web-page construction tools because he already has sites for his courses.
However, he said he liked the fact that, when his students log onto MyUCDavis, the portal would automatically present them with links to his course pages.
"I really like the way they're doing it, which is to essentially leverage and use what's already available on campus," Matthews said. "Rather than try to reinvent everything, they're basically providing a way to make it more accessible."
English lecturer Andy Jones, who teaches scientific and technical writing courses and is the English department's computer-aided instruction coordinator, said he was excited about MyUCDavis.
Jones said he particularly likes the centralized access to databases. "For me that means I will be able to see who is enrolled in a class I'm teaching, see who has sent me e-mail, and see what I have planned for that day's classes, all from a single location."
He predicted the portal would encourage more instructors to post course information on the Web and adjust assignments to better meet their students' needs.
"I hope that access to these tools will encourage independence in my students (and mean shorter lines in Dutton Hall) and in my fellow instructors, so I can spend less time training them in the basics and spend more time teaching them how to best use information technology resources as effective teaching tools," Jones said.