UPDATE:
We've scheduled open house events to discuss the changes. Sign Up and Stop By
This summer, we will be making some major changes to myUMBC as we evolve to meet the growing needs of our community. Some of these changes will be big and obvious, others more subtle and nuanced; but all may require you to relearn a few things.
Here's why we're changing...
- Much of the current myUMBC was an experiment. We’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Times, technology, and people have changed. Now we're ready to take what we learned and implement some new ideas.
- Some features simply aren’t being used.
- A philosophical change of heart on how we approach some problem, especially given the changing technology landscape.
- We need to make things work better for mobile users.
And here's what we're changing...
Start
The start page will be redesigned to resemble an activity feed, much like Facebook and Twitter. The goal is to make the page more personal and easier for you to see the latest updates from the groups you participate in. Community updates will still exist but will take a backseat to the content you care about most.
Main Menu
Keep it simple. The new menu will consist of:
- Start
- Guide - Replaces Topics. A single page with access to the resources you need most, including a complete collection of resources for when you need something special.
- Events - Redesigned. A better way to browse events on campus using interest-based calendars rather than by date alone.
- Explore - Replaces Community. This section will help you keep up with the community buzz.
- Groups - Minor Updates. Easier access to the groups you participate in and ways to find new groups of interest to you.
- Help - Redesigned. The documentation you need, as well as a quick way to request help from experts.
Groups
Groups are here to stay. This feature proved to be extremely popular, so we are going to streamline the experience using best practices created by our users.
But, there will be some growing pains. While Groups have been a huge success in myUMBC, some of the features we originally introduced are changing -- or going away.
Here’s the rundown:
- Group homepages now feature an activity feed with upcoming events, news and general information.
- You can Follow all groups you're interested in -- similar to how a Twitter account works. You will no longer need to "join" some groups and "follow" others. All members of a group must be invited by an admin.
- News Stories have been renamed Posts and can now be used to more easily share and promote group information, including on the group homepage. These posts can also be Pinned or marked Important, giving groups even more control over how their content is displayed and promoted.
- A new email notification feature gives Followers more options for how they choose to receive information from groups: All, Important Only, or None.
- Gone the way of the dodo: Discussions, Media and Barks are being removed in favor of posts, which are a more centralized way to share all content.
Promotions
The elephant in the room: Spotlights. Spotlights served as a great way to offer groups campus-wide visibility and marketing to share important events, updates and deadlines. However, the overwhelming volume and success of Spotlights in its current model is simply unsustainable.
Whether it’s a student organization notice such as upcoming elections or an institutional event like Homecoming, we want to be sure your message is heard across campus. Which is why we have replaced Spotlights with Promotions, a new system that allows groups to promote posts on the myUMBC Start page for all visitors to see.
Here’s how it works:
A handful of posts will show up as promoted content on the myUMBC homepage each day. To submit one of your own, find a post in your group that you would like the world to see, and click the Promote button and select a date you’d like it to show up. That’s it. Have some news, updates or an event you want to promote more than once? No problem. You can promote the same post multiple times.
However, there are a few rules:
- You no longer select a specific run-time; just a single day when you want your post promoted.
- It’s first-come, first-served. To increase the chances your post will be promoted on the myUMBC homepage on a given day, be sure to submit it with plenty of lead time.
- A group can only promote a limited number of posts at a time.
- You can no longer target specific audiences. Instead, your promotion must be applicable to everyone to be approved.
- We will still be using an approval process for all posts to ensure the content shared is relevant and abides by University policies--and that the system isn’t being abused.
Guide
The Guide replaces the Topics menu with a single page containing the most used resources, based on other users like you. Can’t find what you need? Don’t worry, the bottom of the Guide will have links to other Topics pages for resources that aren’t used as frequently. In this update we also tackled the issue of roles in myUMBC. Now, all users will see all of the resources available. Hurrah.
Events
Seeing a calendar with every event on campus can be overwhelming. That’s why we have redesigned the main Events calendar to show you upcoming events filtered by interest. This new approach will provide a much more intuitive way to find events you might want to attend, rather than sending you to a list of everything happening on a given day.
Community Groups
Community Discussions will be replaced with Community Groups -- a more focused venue for conversations. Each Community Group will be associated with a topic, such as Academics, Classifieds, Athletics, or Politics, etc. Also, because Community Discussions have been converted to Groups, you will now be able to follow individual community groups to keep track of when updates are posted. All groups will be visible to members of the community (login required).
A Final Thought...
myUMBC is constantly evolving, and we rely on the feedback and shared needs of our community to continually find ways to improve this ubiquitous campus tool. It is very much a work in progress, and sometimes we just won’t know what works until we try it. With your help we’re confident that myUMBC will continue to grow into an even more successful tool for our faculty, staff and students.
We will be reaching out to various members of the community to make sure these transitions occur as smoothly as possible.
As always, feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly with questions: collier@umbc.edu
