The campus portal that students log into for access to their Bruin email and campus goings-on just got significantly more useful: An upgraded MyUCLA, launched earlier this week, enables students to register for classes, check their grades, track financial aid, plan their social calendars, among other functions. It also has a new look that reflects the design of UCLA’s homepage and a growing number of campus websites.
The new MyUCLA is the culmination of two years of information-gathering, planning, designing, programming and testing to fulfill a longstanding student request for a website that integrates functions from multiple UCLA websites, said Arun Pasricha, director of student affairs information technology. Pasricha and Chris Spreitzer, director of undergraduate education IT, were in a group that oversaw the technical aspects of the upgrade, which was a collaboration among Student Affairs, Information Technology Services and the Division of Undergraduate Education in the UCLA College of Letters and Science.
The new portal integrates the previous version’s features with online functions from UCLA’s Financial Aid Office, URSA (University Records System Access) and other websites that students previously would have open on their computer screens side-by-side to accomplish a task like registering for classes.
“Students would have multiple websites open — the registrar’s site for a schedule of classes, MyUCLA and URSA,” Pasricha said. “They would basically be bouncing around, doing a cut-and-paste” to pull information from one site to another.
The upgraded site offers, among many features, a redesigned class search with class enrollment functions integrated into the student’s online study list and class planner. The URSA and Financial Aid Office websites remain intact and accessible as separate websites — at least for the time being.
Faculty and staff who use MyUCLA will continue to find familiar features like class and photo rosters and access to the Turnitin anti-plagiarism software. They’ll also find the MyUCLA Gradebook, which will have a streamlined new interface by Fall 2014.
Available to all users is a new MyEvents feature which pulls events from the UCLA student groups and UCLA Happenings calendar to a personal calendar based on the user’s pre-set preferences. The site also includes links to everything from emergency contact information to local museums and restaurants.
“This is a fundamental and substantial improvement in how students interact online with UCLA,” said Janina Montero, vice chancellor of student affairs. “I commend the team members who so painstakingly have seen this complex project through and who will build on this foundation to further enhance our students’ online experience.”
Overseeing the project was a steering committee led by Gorden Monroe, associate vice chancellor of student affairs; Betty Glick, associate vice provost, College of Letters and Science; Sam Bersola, associate vice chancellor, Graduate Division; and Andrew Wissmiller, associate vice chancellor of IT services.
Also helping to guide the upgrade — only the second major revision since MyUCLA’s inception in 1997 — were scores of students.
“We reached out to student government, USAC (Undergraduate Students Association Council) representatives and other students across campus,” Spreitzer said. “We had a student group testing it as well, out of the Registrar’s Office.”
Input from students, in fact, changed the project’s direction at several junctures. One of them was in the area of class searches and enrollment, Pasricha recalled. “We were going to introduce a couple of new ideas and concepts, but updated the design based on student groups’ feedback.”
As ambitious as the new MyUCLA is, it’s only the beginning.
“Now that we have the framework for bringing together student-facing functions into this website, it can be replicated,” said Spreitzer, adding that discussions are already underway with other groups in student services.
The team is also eager to receive ongoing feedback from users, said Pasricha, “so we can continue to improve the site’s functionality and user experience.”
Check out the new MyUCLA here.
“This is a fundamental and substantial improvement in how students interact online with UCLA,” said Janina Montero, vice chancellor of student affairs. “I commend the team members who so painstakingly have seen this complex project through and who will build on this foundation to further enhance our students’ online experience.”
Overseeing the project was a steering committee led by Gorden Monroe, associate vice chancellor of student affairs; Betty Glick, associate vice provost, College of Letters and Science; Sam Bersola, associate vice chancellor, Graduate Division; and Andrew Wissmiller, associate vice chancellor of IT services.
Also helping to guide the upgrade — only the second major revision since MyUCLA’s inception in 1997 — were scores of students.
“We reached out to student government, USAC (Undergraduate Students Association Council) representatives and other students across campus,” Spreitzer said. “We had a student group testing it as well, out of the Registrar’s Office.”
Input from students, in fact, changed the project’s direction at several junctures. One of them was in the area of class searches and enrollment, Pasricha recalled. “We were going to introduce a couple of new ideas and concepts, but updated the design based on student groups’ feedback.”
As ambitious as the new MyUCLA is, it’s only the beginning.
“Now that we have the framework for bringing together student-facing functions into this website, it can be replicated,” said Spreitzer, adding that discussions are already underway with other groups in student services.
The team is also eager to receive ongoing feedback from users, said Pasricha, “so we can continue to improve the site’s functionality and user experience.”
Check out the new MyUCLA here.
