The popularity of personalization is beginning to show as the university prepares to release a new version of the myASU page that will merge three popular sites: ASU Interactive, ASU Current Students, and myASU. This will create a one-stop-shop for students to manage their academic life. According to the project website the new site will go live on July 20.

Based on student feedback that was collected last May, the University has set out to simplify the online experience for current and potential students. Leah Lommel, Director of Academic Development at ASU responded saying that:

We are trying to consolidate the ASU web experience for the students so they get the most pertinent information to be successful in school without a lot of digging around.  It is about a personalized experience pertaining to them and their ASU. We plan to continue this strategy of student feedback and more surveys to make the experience better and more integrated over time.

The current survey is asking students to review a semi-working sample of the proposed redesign. Below is a screenshot of the new layout taken from the project website:

So far, the survey results have been positive. Lommel provided me with a few  of the comments that have been received so far.

• It seems a LOT better than the student page we have now. It’s already seeming more useful.
• I really like the set up, it’s easy to understand, it’s useful and I definitely think it’s easier to understand for freshman.

It’s an impressive start and a HUGE improvement on the existing setup. Consolidating these three sites into one location will greatly improve how students keep track of their academic career. No longer will we have to search around from page to page to register for a class or to check announcements from professors. This is an enormous undertaking, so my kudos to everyone involved. I am excited that they are asking, and will continue to ask students for feedback. This is a classic characteristic of emerging web technology; get the users involved and rely on the collective wisdom of your customer base. Here is a bit of the feedback I left yesterday when I took the survey:

• Move the “My Info”/”My Stuff” tabs on the top left instead of top right.
• When student clicks on “My Info”, it would be nice to have a customizable dashboard, similar to the look of the current ASU Google start page. Students could pick and choose which info boxes are displayed on this dashboard.
• Make an RSS version of the academic calendar so that students can add it to their ASU Google Calendar or any other calendar that supports subscriptions.
• Add a link to the ASU announcements section so that students can subscribe via RSS or email to these announcements.
• More prominent links to information about tutors/LRC resources

The project is managed by Lissa Gladden. You can track its progress here if you like.

If you are interested in providing feedback to the project team, spend a few minutes and take the survey.

(Oh yeah - one more thing - the last few questions on the survey ask about mobile devices. Looks like maybe they’re working on developing a version for the iPhone/Blackberry/other mobile devices…)

UPDATE 7/22: Looks like the site is live now. Although, officially it is not supposed to roll out until next week, I was able to view the new page today. If you’re interested in taking a look, check out the new my.asu.edu. Or, you can click the myASU button under the search bar at the top of the blog. I’ve updated the button to direct to the new version. You’ll need your ASURite username and password for access.

I think this is the first time in my college career that I have seen Blackboard move in the direction that the rest of the online world is moving. I’m excited, but still only a tiny bit excited. Here’s why:

According to the post at Wired Campus:

For privacy and security reasons, the Facebook application does not actually pull academic data from Blackboard onto a user’s Facebook page, said Karen Gage, vice president for product strategy at Blackboard, in an interview on Tuesday. Instead, it pushes a notification to Facebook users when something is new on their course Web pages, such as when one of the user’s professors has posted grades. Then the student has to log into Blackboard to see the grade itself.

Boo. Hiss. Scratch. If you’re going to extend your services and become more “open,” why not take it all the way? C’mon Karen - push it to the limit. We should be able to completely manage our classroom experience from Facebook. I think “privacy and security reasons” is a lame excuse to give. I’m not a programmer by any means, but I read a lot of news on the Internets. So far, I haven’t seen any stories about a breach in account security for Facebook. If there are any readers out there that can give reasons for this concern, please share below in the comments.

Okay - enough ranting. I’m happy to see the progress. I hope it turns into more in the coming semesters. If you’re interested, see the official press release from Blackboard about the Facebook app. Or check out blackboardsync.com to learn more.

I’ve added the application to my Facebook account. Now I’m trying to figure out why it’s not recognizing my ASU Blackboard URL…

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that ASU is upgrading to Blackboard 8 tomorrow:

If you’re an ASU student or faculty member, check out the Blackboard Wiki. There’s one for both of you:

• ASU Student Blackboard Wiki
• ASU Faculty Blackboard Wiki

(I think you have to log in with your ASURite username and password.)

UPDATE: After publishing this post, I sent a link around to a few people. I sent it to Matthew Maurer and Amy Storey from Blackboard, Inc., as well as Ruvi Wijesuriya, an ASU faculty member that has had experience with our implementation of Blackboard’s services. I haven’t heard anything back from Blackboard, Inc. yet, but this is what Ruvi had to say:

The new FB app for Bb looks pretty cool but it is still too buggy to implement at ASU.  We have been following the experiences of other universities since the pre-release and official release of the building block and many of the institutions that run load balanced systems (like we do) have experienced problems with it.  Apart from it being unstable and having connectivity issues, one bug that is a major concern is that unavailable courses (ones where the instructor has not yet made the course available to students) are showing up in the FB module and giving students access to unavailable content (for example the answer key to a quiz that has yet to be given).  So I don’t see the FB add-on going in until the major bugs have been fixed and it is stable.

That was disappointing to hear, but not surprising. Given Blackboard’s lackluster past I could have predicted spotty performance on this new adventure. Let’s hope they clean it up so that students can start using it!

(Image was taken from blackboardsync.com. Hope they don’t mind.)

Users can now access Zoho’s slew of web-based productivity applications with their existing Google or Yahoo account. Except for those of you still stuck in Hotmail land…this should just about cover everyone.

I would encourage you to give them a shot if you haven’t before.

Zoho Writer and Zoho Creator are two of my favorites.

(I saw this today at TechCrunch and the Zoho Blogs.)

I logged into my ASU Google Docs account yesterday morning to a great little surprise. It looks like ASU students now have access to the new offline features of Google Docs.

Google Docs is only the second web application from Google to take advantage of their Gears API (the first was Google Reader back in May). In a nutshell, Gears is “…an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline.” If you haven’t seen it already, here is the video announcement that Google published at the beginning of April.

There are a bunch of sites that take advantage of Gears already. There’s even a feed that features companies who have adopted Gears’ technology.

I just checked out a personal finance site called Buxfer that looks pretty cool. It has all the tools you would expect from a finance application - track spending, sync automatically with your existing accounts, add tags to purchases to see where the money’s going. They even have gadgets that you can drop on your Facebook, Netvibes, or myASU homepage. Take a tour of Buxfer’s features and sign up for a free account if you’re interested. I think I will…

Oh yeah - and remember Zoho? That online suite of insanely useful applications? Zoho has been using Google Gears since November 2007 with their Zoho Writer application. If you don’t have a Zoho account, what are you waiting for?

Have fun off line, kids.

Techcrunch reported it just moments ago at IMAP Support Disappears from Gmail.

I really hope this isn’t permanent.

UPDATE: An announcement was just posted in the Gmail Help Discussion group. Looks like it’s a temporary error and they’re working on fixing it.

UPDATE #2: Looks like it’s working again. At least in both of my accounts…that was fast.

Related posts:

• POP Goes the Gmail (part 1)
• POP Goes the Gmail (part 2)

• Firefox (49.68%)
• Internet Explorer (32.48%)
• Safari (15.92%)
• Opera (1.91%)

This is a trend that I enjoy watching. Browsing the Internet has, for me, been much safer, faster, and more enjoyable since I stopped using Internet Explorer. (I guess you could say I’m BrowsingHappy.) I used Firefox exclusively up until about 4 months ago. It’s now a toss-up for me between Firefox and Safari. With Apple’s recent update to Safari 3.1, I have noticed a significant increase in speed and reliability compared to Firefox. This has been a huge factor for me not to use Firefox 100% of the time.

Although it’s faster than anything out there right now, I still have a major gripe about Safari: no plug-in support. Firefox got this right when they created the ability for third-party plugins (aka Add-Ons) to enhance the browsing experience. These are little pieces of code that become a seamless part of your Firefox browser. As a student, I have relied many times on the Zotero add-on when attempting to format a citation or a paper. Zotero is incredibly useful and easy to use. If you use Firefox, you should go get it.

Another favorite add-on of mine has been the Del.ic.ious Toolbar. I use this at least on a weekly basis to tag sites that I want to refer back to. I’m not a power-user of Del.ic.ious by any means, but this has really helped me to keep track of my Internet bookmarks. Read more about it here.

I’ll close up this post with a classic clip from a classic movie. I like to think that Garth was paying tribute to one of the safest Internet browsers around. Enjoy:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=EvQikr1bmJE[/youtube]

Nutrition majors at the Polytechnic campus, rejoice! While it’s true that Spring Break has come to a screeching halt, there was a wonderful surprise waiting for us today in the classrooms and hallways of the Nutrition building…wireless Internet access.

When I started my nutrition classes last semester, I was peeved to discover that this was one of only a few buildings on the campus that lacked Internet access. I even started a petition using Zoho Creator, posted it on my personal (and now neglected) blog, and sent an email out to fellow students and faculty to help make a change. I received quite the response. If you’re interested, go read what people had to say.

I have grown accustom to taking notes and following my professors’ slide shows from the comfort of my laptop. This has been a great way for me to keep on top of assignments and deadlines. Most of the time professors will not post lecture notes until a few minutes before class, so it’s handy to be able to pull them up in class.

I’m not sure how they did it, but I have a feeling it has something to do with these curious bubble thingies (yes - that’s a technical term) that have appeared in the ceiling tiles in the hallways:

However it was done, it works like a dream. To all of you who were involved with setting this up, I give you a big huge* THANK-YOU on behalf of myself and the rest of the nutrition department. If you’re a nutrition student or faculty member reading this, please feel free to add your thank-you’s in the comments below.

For students thinking about leaving their pen and paper at home and switching to the digital world, here are a few web-based services you should check out:

• Google Docs (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations)
• Zoho (everything Google has, but 10x better)
• Remember the Milk (the To Do list on steroids)
• Web Apps from ASU (Never buy software again. So many applications…all free)

*Please note: The thank you that I am extending has a BMI of 33.4, which classifies it as clinically obese.