Students give NetDirect a failing grade

-- Sandy Sweep

Information technology (IT) is paving the way for today’s college student, but potholes in the technology highway are sometimes the cause of online road rage.

The common role of most IT teams is to provide up-to-date information in a format that is easy for users to navigate, a role that is becoming increasingly important in higher education. Metropolitan State University is no exception. As budgets at Minnesota colleges and universities shrink, online courses and automated student services are an essential cost-saving tool.

There are two primary IT links on the university website: the IT website and the NetDirect portal. The IT site offers information for the general public like links to IT resources, general information about the university and faculty contact information. NetDirect is the university’s online student portal—and the source of much student frustration.

The NetDirect portal is easy to access. Students can register online or from computer kiosks on campus, but that’s where the easy part ends. The NetDirect main page offers 10 sidebar links, and for most students, navigation from these links is where the frustration lies.

An exploration of the NetDirect main page reveals that an online traffic jam lurks behind each of the ten links. For example, the “Manage Records” link unpredictably brings students to the registration login. Links on the navigation bar not only failed to bring users to the appropriate screens, but left them stranded in cyberspace limbo because the browser back button wouldn’t return them to the main page.

The university email system also causes major headaches for students. An informal student survey conducted by Valerie Novak, Student IT Advisory Committee and Student Senate member, revealed complaints of prolific Spam and duplicate emails as well as the need to submit several profiles for login, and trouble deleting unwanted email. Stacy Deyoung, a public relations major, stated, “I don’t like it (the email system). I get tons of junk mail and I’ve even had to cancel my account and open a new one to get rid of it.”

Students also struggle with navigation problems when using Desire2Learn (D2L), the web tool that enables students use to take online courses. Web pages are slow to load, and inconsistent navigation bars make movement around the site difficult. When Novak conducted her survey with students, D2L users reported that they were required to completely shut down and restart their computers in order to use the service, and that it was easier to access the site from a remote location rather than on campus. Novak simply states, “Overall, students are not happy with NetDirect.”

Research suggests that adequate IT staffing may help solve the problem. The National Survey of Information Technology in U.S. Higher Education has been conducted annually for the past 11 years. The 2000 survey revealed that colleges and universities consider retaining current IT personnel and helping them stay current with new technologies as “the top of the list of 27 strategic, budget, and personnel issues confronting their institutions.”

Kenneth Green, founder and director of The Campus Computing Project, said, “Colleges and universities remain significantly understaffed in the area of user support.” Survey results indicate that the ratio between student users and university support personnel is five times higher than the ratio between corporate users and corporate support personnel. Furthermore, the same survey showed that 65 percent of colleges and universities have a strategic plan for IT services. But, when broken down by specific areas, only 13 percent had designated plans for student portal services and only 29 percent had designated plans for online learning.

IT staffing problems will not go away on their own because the demand for IT services at colleges and universities will continue to grow. Fifty-nine percent of colleges and universities report that they utilize electronic mail services, and 55 percent report that they offer online courses. In fact, one in 10 National Education Association higher education instructors report teaching one or more online courses. Additionally, the number of students who utilized distance-learning options doubled between 1997 and 2002.

With the student, faculty and staff dependence on technology growing yearly, much needs to be done for Metropolitan State University to remain on the information highway. Between January and March of this year, university IT staff will hold nine workshops to assist students with site navigation. Leah Traen, Metropolitan director of IT user services, recently issued a news release with information on website addresses, changes in site navigation, web content, and future site updates.

Students can go to http://www.metrostate.edu/it/ to access the IT services home page, and http://portal.metrostate.edu/nps/ for access to the NetDirect online learning portal.

The full results of the Campus Computing Survey can be found at http://www.campuscomputing.net/summaries/2000/

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