IMPERIAL VALLEY COLLEGESTUDENT PORTAL

Taking the first steps towards an online campus community.

Omar Ramos

07/15/2009

What Prompted the Student Portal’s Creation?

Primarily:

New federal data collection requirements

Limitations within Banner Self-Service

The big problems with Self-Service are:

Questions are limited to 5 options

Unable to Present Survey to Students once per semester

Missing Features Make it Impossible to Meet New Data Collection Requirements

Best Practices suggested by Sungard is to maintain Banner at the baseline level.

Was a student portal really needed?

Simple Answer: NO

But by expanding upon the data collection needs it created an opportunity for some really cool developments...

WebSTARCurrently, this is all we have...

that’s it.

No, I’m serious.

Stop laughing.

It’s not funny.

LuminusAlternately, we can use Sungard’s

Just a small problem...

It costs about $170,000.

(only)

Okay, you can laugh now.

Plus, there are all of those minor details...

like...buying new servers,

installing the software, training users,

testing functionality, missing features,

integrations, etc.

*SIDEBAR*

With the current economic situation

it seems like the college is usingzero-based budgeting now...

And historically...

I’ve had what economists call...

a “near-zero-based” budget...

So for me...

I’m always looking for the“best bang for your buck”

scenario

Which leads to some very creative solutions...

*END SIDEBAR*

*drumroll please*

*drumroll please*

Imperial Valley College’s Student Portal

Student Portal Quick Facts

Built on version 1.5 of the Joomla Content Management System

Open-source

Free

Has many inexpensive “off the shelf” programs available

Uses PHP/MySQL

Easily Installed

Acts as an additional layer above Banner Self-Service

Students must login to portal before WebSTAR can be accessed.

Custom Joomla Extensions Built By Imperial Valley College

Banner Self-Service Authentication

Students, faculty, staff can use WebSTAR Login Info

Banner Self-Service Simple Single Sign-On

After logging into Joomla, WebSTAR is just one click away.

Google Apps for Education Integration

Students, faculty, staff can create one my.imperial.edu email account

Criteria-based Redirects

Redirect users to a certain page depending on unfulfilled criteria (e.g. surveys)

So what does this mean for the college?

Well, remember this slide?

WebSTARCurrently, this is all we have...

that’s it.

By using Joomla, we can “encapsulate”

WebSTAR’s Features

and we can add a lot of new ones...

Student Portal

WebSTAR

Google Appsfor Education

SocialNetwork

Listings

Events

Files

StudentSurveys

Features Encapsulated byStudent Portal

StudentLinks

StudentNews

NewProgramSpotlight

Fund-raising

Business

Ads

That’s a whole lotta features.

Plus, more can beintegrated later as ideas are

brought forward.

Since it’s release on July 9th...

Approximately 206 new users have logged into the portal

Approximately 58 of these users are staff members

19 Email Accounts Have Been Created

1 Listing has been posted

10 Videos have been added

20 Photos have been added

What’s next?

Close Site to Current Test Users

Play from Google’s Book...was used when Gmail came out

Test current functionality

Fix bugs as needed

Optimize site

Upgrade programs used by the portal

Current Results?

We can now fulfill the new Federal requirements easily.

We have done so in an inexpensive manner.

And we have, in my opinion, added exceptional value to our students, faculty, and staff that may not be available at many other California Community Colleges.

Questions, Comments, Demo?