Web portal will soon open to students

This summer and fall, students are finding a new way to communicate, obtain important academic information, and schedule appointments and events.

They are using an online service called My UW–Madison, which provides an individualized view of campus information in a friendly, secure, Web-based format.

My UW–Madison is a “portal,” an integration of many online tools and services customized for each user. A student who logs on to My UW–Madison is presented with a Web page that shows, in one place, key personalized information such as course schedule, library resources, financial aid awards and other information. The student can modify the portal’s display to show other specific information.

New UW–Madison students attending the Summer Orientation, Advising, and Registration program were given the opportunity to activate and use their My UW account. Campus leaders expect that the portal eventually will serve more than 55,000 students, faculty and staff at UW–Madison, each with a different set of information needs.

My UW–Madison was designed to serve the dynamic needs of this population. “My UW–Madison is actually customizable in two ways,” says the Division of Information Technology’s John Peterson, who chairs the university’s advisory group for the portal project. “First, it is smart enough to recognize who the student is and present appropriate information based on that. Second, a student can tailor My UW–Madison based on his or her needs from a broad array of resources.”

My UW–Madison was launched June 18 after several years of development and testing. A campus advisory committee guided a large team of computer technologists in developing this multi-faceted system.

More than 5,500 students in biology and engineering participated in a pilot test during the 2000-01 academic year.

After My UW–Madison becomes accessible to faculty and staff, the portal will eventually allow these users to review personnel records, check leave balances, submit travel expense reports, and modify benefits packages, among other things.