By Jeffery Boudreau | Observer Reporter
Fall 2010 marked the first semester with MWCC’s new online portal iConnect and was met with mixed reviews by students. The portal takes on the task of organizing places and information students may need from MWCC’s website. Most notably taking advantage of the unified usernames and passwords for WebConnect, Blackboard, and student e-mails done in 2009.
People who have used the MWCC’s website in the past may remember scouring the site for what they needed and finding it after some frustrated browsing. Then if a friend had the same problem the next week, you couldn’t remember how to get there.
Once you figured it out and got used to the site they change it, like when you get a new phone or Facebook makes some changes. You hate the new set up but within a few months you can’t even remember how it was done before.
Web Administer and Developer Tamara Dower, the person behind managing the iConnect portal, said some of the old links were left up like the ones for WebConnect and student email access to help students with the transition over to iConnect. “Eventually we’ll take the other links down; we’re weaning people off.” Dower also said there will be some, “new and exciting stuff over the spring” for the portal though she didn’t want to get into much detail about exactly what is in store.
“At first I didn’t like it too much just because I wasn’t used to it,” Ashlee Bresnahan Elementary Education Major said about her
experience with iConnect this semester, “It’s okay now.” Jim Bures another student at the Mount said, “it is nice that it combines all applications with one password,” but he found it to be cumbersome and didn’t like it very much, “the concept is nice, but execution is sloppy.” Paralegal Major Hollee Watson, didn’t use the website very much in her first semester in spring 2010, but said, “This semester I had two online courses and found it pretty easy to use.”
One of the more popular complaints is that iConnect opens a new window when redirecting you to applications. Bures said, “It is not so nice that logging into each individual application takes so much time.” iConnect opens Blackboard, WebConnect and student e-mails in new windows.
The Green Street Cafe menu, exclusive Mount Observer content, Announcements, and the Events Calendar are designed to be in the portal and load on the same page. “I could never find the events and final schedule online before iConnect,” said Bresnahan.
Another common complaint is iConnect logging you out after some idle time. Dower said that is in place for security reasons because you can access your entire student account from the portal. Since iConnect opens other portals in new windows, “it is easy to forget after working in your e-mail or Blackboard that you have iConnect open,” Watson said.
Dower said they like hearing feedback about the portal and try incorporating feedback into the design but, “we don’t change things drastically for one person just because they don’t like it.” “Little changes here and there,” are instituted to make it a better experience for students.
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