Thumbs up for StudentNET portal at IWMW10

This year I signed up to do a presentation about the Canterbury Christ Church University student portal, StudentNET, in front of my peers and colleagues at the IWMW 2010. Although it was quite nerve-wracking, and it included a live demo, the nightmare of any presenter, it went very well.

My 20 minute talk was well received on Twitter and in subsequent interviews. Here is some of the feedback that our portal received ... (ego boost!)

Some feedback
"What has been the best bit this year so far?
All of it has been brilliant. By far the highlights were Sid and Paul Boag’s p5/p6 talks, however the StudentNet portal was a great technological demo. If pushed to select just a single highlight, I would go with Josef Lapkas StudentNet – to save me having to decide between Sid & Paul! The project management parallel session also deserves a mention."

Twitter feeback

liwazi any library related studentNet widgets exist ? such as reading lists, exampapers, amazon-like recommendation borrow system #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 CCCU - very nice job!

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 think the UI of StudentNET looks nice - strength of building on something from outside the sector, non-corporate ?

PlanetClaire Brilliant talk there from Josef. Time to revisit the student portal project methinks. #iwmw10 #p8

mancypino Loving the Student Portal demo! #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Contextural help for each widget - all works very smoothly.

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 I like the studentnet portal - seems really well thought out, designed and most importantly usable for the students

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Use of the campusM API to pull data in as future development - interesting - I'm looking at that too...

ostephens #iwmw10 #p8 the problem with this stuff is almost always getting access to the data - not building the code/widgets

PlanetClaire StudentNET looks fab! MIght have to pay a visit to Canterbury! #iwmw10 #p8

NIMRweb RT @liwazi studentNet - Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better #iwmw10 #p8

spellerlive #iwmw10 #p8 Comms widget to send personalised alerts - nicely done - even if it is all .NET :(

webpackets #iwmw10 #p8 Good to catch up on this project, attended the barcamp last year on the early stages of it.

PlanetClaire Who owns the student portal? Internal comms, web team, student services? #iwmw10 #p8

liwazi studentNet - student portal from Canterbury Christ Church Univ is like CAMSIS in Cambridge Univ, but better, much better #iwmw10 #p8

Useful links

View the presentation

Watch part of the presentation

StudentNET Content

This paper describes how student content could be treated once removed from the external web. Its purpose is to start a discussion.

Option 1 - Full content integration into StudentNET V2

Similar to content administered by the i-zone content would be surfaced using the 'app area' in StudentNET V2.

i-zone content surfaced through StudentNET V2

The advantage of this approach is that it is in keeping with existing design and functionality.

Option 2 - Layered content integration into StudentNET V2

Following the original StudentNET vision, content would be surfaced using a conventional, layered web structure.

This layered content would be accessed through an 'A-Z app widget' from StudentNET V2. It could also be accessible through direct URLs.

E.G.: https://secure.canterbury.ac.uk/student/subject1/

The advantage with this approach is that it appears to be more scalable. It allows for more flexibility when having to cater for all CCCU's departments' needs.

Content structure

With either option the content structure needs to be carefully designed to allow for content to be reused in different areas of the web and in different media.

Content would be packaged up in logical subject sections. These subject sections may be informed by the more detailed content audit.

Content administration

With either option Contensis CMS would be used to administer content and support workflow rules.

Content rules will be important because content will be edited from staff across departments.

First mini barcamp experience

I held a barcamp session today. After 3 years of attending the IWMW, I finally plucked up the courrage to speak in front of my peers at this years IWMW at the University of Essex.

My session was about our development efforts towards delivering a new student portal at Canterbury Christ Church. The session, I think, was well received a few delegates have contacted me since wanting to be kept informed about our progress and student feedback.

You never know, we might be able to share the portal and collaborate on future widget developments.

Development of StudentNET Portal in full swing

The development of the new StudentNET portal is now truly under way. CIS has completed a collection of comprehensive specification documents and along with the help of external developers has set its sights for a rapid creation of a first prototype to be released within the next 3 months.

At the same time the web team's graphic designer is pushing forward original design ideas to enrich the students' experience of the new StudentNET portal.

Although still over 8 month off from completion, the StudentNET portal is taking shape as a well founded concept and is supported by state of the art web 2.0 technologies. The StudentNET framework within which students will be able to create their own homepages, is based on DropThings.com, a web 2.0 portal product that has revolutionised the way users view and collect information on the web. Students will have the opportunity to view their modules, timetable, external RSS feeds and much much more, all on one page hosted by the University.

Thoughts on developing access to facebook and external mail clients such as GoogleMail, HotMail and the like are also under way to try and enhance the students' online experience at CCCU.

All these cool services will be underpinned by online content tailored to each student. This means that students see what they want to see online as well as what they need to see to support their studies and life at CCCU.

There will be many more news about features and services, and ideas coming from this in the next few months, so watch this space!