The University launched myMU, a brand new online portal that provides one-click access to all web programs for students and faculty, on Thursday, Feb. 6.
This new website, created by the University’s Information Management team and their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system vendor, Ellucian, enables all University students, faculty and staff to log on to eCampus, WebAdvisor, and all other web-based systems and sites from one place. After students sign in using their student ID and password, the myMU homepage will display their class schedule, a monthly calendar, an update on the weekly weather, and even a countdown to Spring Break, among many other things.
“It’s great to have all the websites we utilize for school be put into one place,” Kelly Parks, a sophomore business administration major, said. “I am always going back and forth on tabs between eCampus, WebAdvisor and Outlook. This makes that a lot easier to access,” Parks continued.
Edward Christensen, Vice President for Information Management, explained, “We’ve had discussions about creating an intranet for many years. Although we have various systems that contain internal content [such as eCampus and WebAdvisor], we did not have one system to link them all together.”
After an external evaluation of the ERP system in Oct. 2012, it was discovered that students and staff were looking for a portal that would allow them to easily access all of the University-based websites that they often visited. This led to the creation of myMU.
Planning for the development of this portal began in spring 2013 and the implementation started in summer 2013, according to Christensen. During the developmental phase, two small groups of students participated in focus groups to help aid the process and to find out exactly what the student body was looking for.
Danielle Raiano, a sophomore biology major, said that she hated having to go to the University’s homepage in order to access her email and all of the other online resources.
“It was so annoying having to go to Monmouth’s website, click on the ‘Resources For Current Students’ tab just to open my email, and then I would have to open another window if I wanted to go on eCampus or WebAdvisor,” said Raiano.
“[myMU] just makes it easier to find information. Instead of having to go through multiple pages, you have it all organized into one,” said Payal Patal, a sophomore political science major.
Even before the creation of myMU, the University encouraged students to use the multiple technological resources that were offered. The use of WebAdvisor is necessary to register for classes and graduation, and eCampus is used by both students and professors as a way to keep up with class progress and grades. MyMU connects both of these websites.
“I think that it is an exciting addition to our portfolio of technology,” said Mary Anne Nagy, Vice President for Student and Community Services. “I think that it will help us all better serve our students and be more informed about what is happening on campus,” she continued.
Christensen said that the response to myMU has been “overwhelmingly positive” so far.
“Since officially going live last week, we’ve had over 800 unique visitors to the portal, and we’d like to see that number continue to grow as we make more and more content and functionability available,” he explained.
“This is just the first phase of the implementation, and we’re planning on expanding the functionality of the myMU portal,” said Christensen.
To learn more about myMU, go to myMU.monmouth.edu or stop by the Information Management Training Room in Edison Hall on Friday throughout the month of February between 9 am- 12 pm or 1 pm – 4 pm for a portal demo.
PHOTO COURTESY of INFO at Monmouth University
