VO LU M E 26
ISSUE 1
CHAFFEY
B R E E Z E MONDAY + FEBR UAR Y 2, 2015
FEATURE
A&E
OPINION
SPORTS
Free Community College
Savage Sentimentality
I Am Not Charlie Hebdo
Profile: Chelsea Waddy
Tech evolution of ‘my chaffey view’
Illustration by CHRIS SALAZAR
The MyChaffey Student Portal was launched at the start of the semester along with a brand new email service for students. All registered students now have access to a @panther.chaffey. edu email address as well as an education portal and unified login system for all campus internet services, including Moodle, eRes, MyChaffeyVIEW and campus wi-fi. School faculty also have access to a faculty version of the MyChaffey portal, which provides links to the MyChaffeyVIEW gradebook, faculty email, class rosters and various other faculty resources. Interim VP of Administrative Services Melanie Siddiqi explained that the portal was first installed in 2011 but received a major expansion starting late last year. CampusEAI is the for-profit arm of the CampusEAI Consortium, a non-profit association which invests in education technology and helps higher education institutions with their IT needs. Over 2000 colleges and universities are members of the consortium, including Chaffey College. According to Siddiqi, the school partnered with CampusEAI on the education portal after hearing about a $160,000 grant the consortium of-
“The provision of student email accounts was undertaken to facilitate communication between the college and students.” fers schools for developing education portals. The grant covers the cost of integration and other development services. The school has previously been paying CampusEAI approximately $30,000 per year for hosting the portal, which will increase to around $72,000 per year now that all of Chaffey’s roughly 20,000 students and staff will be on the system. Siddiqi said, “The provision of student email accounts was undertaken to facilitate communication between the college and students and was based on input and recommendations from Student Services, faculty, and, most specifically, the students when approving the
student technology fee.” This new service is actually provided through Google, providing students with unlimited storage for their Chaffey-affiliated Google Drive and Gmail accounts. Adoption of the student email since the Jan. 12 announcement has not been without problems. Special Education Major Armine Mkhitaryan said she hadn’t logged into her school email address yet. “I just kind of find it inconvenient,” she said, “‘cause I usually use my email, and it’s, you know, on my phone; there is an actual email notification I get on my phone when my teachers email me. So I really don’t like the idea of a student email. I guess I’m just not used to it.” It should be noted that the student email account can be added to most mobile phones just like a regular gmail account, but the new web portal does not work on mobile browsers. “This morning when I got that email, I did [try to log in]. I tried, but I gave up because I was like, ‘OK, where’s the password area?’” Mkhitaryan said. Accounting Major Suha Alkam found the unfamiliar login process slightly confusing but is happy overall with the new service due to the student
and educational discounts that a .edu email address gives students access to. Business Student Dominic Howell also had positive things to say about the new email service and portal. “It’s actually pretty helpful. I mean, I think so, because most of my classes I couldn’t find before, but now with the new email, I’m alright. I’m straight. The information is actually really reliable.” Nursing Major Karina Madrigal said, “It’s been a great experience for me.” In particular, she appreciates only having to pay $30 per year for Amazon Prime as opposed to the $69 per year for non-students. And while it’s possible to get student pricing for Prime and other services without a .edu address, it’s much more of a hassle. Whether students have a positive or negative experience with the new portal and email, service seems to be largely determined by whether they tried to access the service with their phones or with their computer. However, all students interviewed expressed positive opinions of the school’s wifi service, which was upgraded from 20Mbps to 100 Mbps during the Fall 2014 term, according to Siddiqi. “This spring, the existing network equipment and wireless access points will be upgraded and replaced with models that can support current standards. Once that upgrade is complete, IT staff will begin to install additional wireless access points in expanded locations.” Once the wifi hardware upgrades to either 802.11n or 802.11ac are completed, students should experience internet speeds closer to campus wired connections. These upgrades were prompted by feedback during the passage of the Student Technology Fee by the Associated Students of Chaffey College and the Governing Board last year. Vendors for the hardware upgrades are still being evaluated by the college. Siddiqi also assured that MyChaffey will be upgrading to the latest mobile-friendly version of the portal software in the “not-too-distant future.”
CALVIN HUANG @resilien7