The online experience of University members is currently highly fragmented.  The two most important fragments are the University Website (UWS) and MyEd.

• The University Website (UWS)
  • Unauthenticated end-users
  • Hosts a large amount of support information for University services
• The University Portal (MyEd)
  • Authenticated users – University members
  • Access to online services, personalised information, and notifications

A clear vision for online student experience has been set out in a recent report on the Student Experience Project by Sheila Green:

Students have easy access to consistently high quality online information and services, which meet or exceed their expectations at a place, time and in a way that meets their individual needs.    There is a major opportunity to create a consistent user experience between the UWS and MyEd, because:

• The University now has Global Experience Language (GEL) including
  • Recommended approaches to a range of common UI patterns
  • A reference implementation in Twitter Bootstrap
• The theme of the new UWS applies the GEL implementation of Bootstrap
• The latest version of uPortal, the platform MyEd is based-on, has a responsive theme based on Bootstrap

Grasping this opportunity would address the problem of the current mismatch between the user interfaces of the UWS and MyEd:

• In 2015 the University Website (UWS) will:
  • Be fully responsive
  • Conform to the University GEL
• The University Portal (MyEd)
  • Has a new mobile interface, but is not yet responsive
  • Does not conform the University GEL

The project also seeks to better integrate MyEd and the UWS by:

• Designing and implementing a shared information architecture
• Showing key information in MyEd to authenticated users of the UWS
• Providing an unauthenticated view of MyEd, using uPortal “guest” layout

The ultimate aim is making MyEd into “the part of University website you log-in to”.