UW-Madison students have long been able to access course information online, using the MyUW Course Resources portlet since 2001. Indeed, it was one of the original My UW portlets. As was typical at the time, however, it was not mobile friendly.
Students told the registrar’s office that they wanted a more accessible, mobile friendly way to view their course schedule, final grades and other courses data, and now they have it: the My UW-Madison MyCourses Portlet.
MyCourses course list screenshot
The portlet integrates information from campus learning management systems and the PeopleSoft system used by the registrar’s office, so students can access a comprehensive variety course information at a glance on mobile devices and desktops alike, including:
Lists of courses by term
Meeting times and locations, including maps of campus
Learning Management System content, regardless of the platform of origin
Instructor course pages
Instructor contact information
Library reserves
Exam schedules and locations
Final grades
MyCourses portlet view of specific course information
The main development team for the portlet was a team in DoIT Academic Technology’s Learning Solutions group, the My UW-Madison Academic Application Development (MUMAA) service, lead by Jim Helwig and Mike Farnham. Mike describes the team’s role in the MyCourses project:
(MUMAA) was the main development team for updating the UW-Madison Courses Portlet code base to provide the functionality formerly provided by the Course Resources portlet. The Course Resources portlet was one of the original portlets developed for the My UW-Madison portal, in 2001. The Courses Resources portlet was developed by the MUMAA Team. MUMAA had intended on re-writing the Course Resources application for a variety of reasons. The fact the Courses Portlet code base had already been used to create the Final Grades portlet was a good coincidence. The MUMMA team then leveraged the existing Courses Portlet code to incorporate the functionality provided by Course Resources.
Mike describes the diverse collaborative team:
The MUMAA Team has a rich history of collaborative work with the various departments listed. We have been leveraging the UI/UX skills provided by DoIT Communications. With the advent of the CHUB web services (CHUB = Curricular HUB), we have been working with the DEM/RO and the developers to use the data provided by these services. Jim Helwig also leads the core portal developer team. Jim has been heavily involved with the Apereo/uPortal community for a number of years. It was a natural fit for him to lead a team that interacted with the uPortal community.
Project Manager Jim Helwig describes the project as
“an example of the sum being more than the parts, we were able to combine efforts from a variety of partners and come together for this solution. While the My UW-Madison Academic Application Development service did the primary work, the Registrar’s Office provided expertise on accessing student information from ISIS, DoIT Communications developed the user interface design, the Core Portal team assisted with portlet implementation, and the greater Apereo Community provided the Open Source basis for the Courses portlet.”
Of course Jim had some challenges coordinating such a diverse team:
It was necessary to focus on communication in order keep all parties informed as to what their role was and what progress was being made.
The Apereo Foundation was formed by the merger of Jasig and the Sakai Foundation in late December 2012. Sakai and Jasig had been pioneers in the production and adoption of open source software for higher education for over ten years. Apereo takes this work further, providing a more rational and improved organisational framework for a range of projects and software communities serving higher education.
–The Apereo website
One of the Apereo Foundation’s projects is uPortal, a framework for the development of web portals to meet the needs of Higher Educations.
While the Apereo Community’s Courses Portlet and Calendar portlets formed the initial basis of MyCourses, Mike and his team extended and enhanced them to meet the projects requirements and will be contributing them back to the greater community.
This was the first project the MUMAA Team worked directly with the open source code. …Jim Helwig has a great deal of experience working with the [Apereo] community. The MUMAA Team prior to this project had been more of a customer of the portal, which of course is an open source project…. I know the Apereo Community has been anticipating us contributing back the Course Schedule changes we have made.
The portlet has been well received by students, who cite both its mobile friendliness and general functionality. Ahad Zamen, Freshman in Computer Science:
The My Courses portlet is my favorite one yet! It shows just about everything I need from my schedule to grades, and even exam times and locations, all right on my front page where I added it!
Diverse collaboration, inspired by student feedback, and a desire to improve the student experience has characterized this project from beginning to end, and resulted in a substantial improvement to My UW, by putting students’ course data at their fingertips.
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