Portal Implementation at La Salle University

Sabrina DeTurkAssistant Provost

La Salle University

Presented 4/6/04 for the Philadelphia Chapter of the Society for Information Management

La Salle University

• La Salle is a Catholic, comprehensive University founded by the Christian Brothers in Philadelphia in 1863.

• Committed to personalized, humanistic, practical education

• Two campuses: one in northwest Philadelphia and one in Newtown, Bucks County, 25 miles north of the city

La Salle University

• 5,500 undergraduate, graduate and continuing education students annually enroll in one of three schools: Arts and Sciences, Business and Nursing

• Students come from 25 states and 37 foreign countries

• Two-thirds of undergraduates live on campus

• 90% of graduate students are working professionals attending part-time

Why have a portal at La Salle ?

• Driving Forces– Initially Driven by Admissions Office– Committee selected a product that was integrated with

computer systems across campus– Portal system viewed as an opportunity to improve

communication with all university constituencies– “Cradle to Grave” access to information and technical

resources (e.g., eMail) from the University

Decision Making Process

• Requirements :– Ability to integrate with BANNER

Student Information System (SIS)– Personalization– Customization– Portable

Portal Implementation• Implementation Team

– “Portal Action Team” – La Salle Constituents

• Content Team

• Marketing/Training Team

• Technical Team

– Outside Consultants• SCT/Campus Pipeline Consultants

– Prospective Student Portal

– Email/Calendar Single-Sign-On (SSO)

• iNotes Email Consultants– Email/Calendar Integration

Portal Implementation• Challenges

– Communication with key constituencies• University Departments

– Office of Admissions– University Communications– Information Technology (IT)

• Computer Governance Committee (Upper Management)

• Consultants

– Need for “Top-Level” Support– Managing Change

• Technologically Change Averse Constituents• Help-Desk Support

Distinctive features of mylasalle

• Prospective Student Portal (PSP)– Allows/encourages prospective students to create

portal accounts– Pushes customized admissions content– Collects information into Banner SIS for use in

recruiting

• iNotes Email Integration– More robust Webmail tool– Presented challenges in password and data

synchronization– One of the biggest barriers to user satisfaction

Continuing Challenges• Integration w/other systems• Scalability/load issues• Account Management• Help Desk Support• Collecting/analyzing usage data• End-user buy-in• Content production and management• Connections to University Web site• Collaborative tools (especially groups)

Survey Highlights

• 93% access mylasalle daily or weekly

• 58% use it primarily to check email

• 17% use it primarily to access SIS

• 34% say they are least likely to use mylasalle to read content in a channel

• 73% have not subscribed to any channels

• Qualitative feedback focuses on usability issues

Moving Ahead

• Hired a full-time manager for portal• Implemented new management structure

– Portal manager

– Portal Steering Committee

– Functional areas / teams

• Cultivate high level administrative support• Integrate “care and feeding” of the portal into

daily operations in all areas of University