“MyIllinois”:my.illinois.edu, a campus-wide “informational portal,” is now targeting all students, rather than the incoming freshmen it focused on in the past.

Since its creation in 2008, with funding from the student services development team, the portal has been integrated into the University of Illinois at Chicago, Springfield and Urbana campuses. The portal’s original purpose was to aid freshmen through summer orientation and to help provide a smooth transition into college life, said Todd Nelson, executive project coordinator for Administrative Information Technology Services. But after some restructuring of the website, this role has changed.

“Now, its main role is to establish a place and eliminate confusion about where to go to get information about everything on campus,” said Tim Carroll, manager of Application Frameworks Group at CITES. “With a big physical campus, the web presence can be vast, and it can be confusing to people trying to find information day-to-day.”

In helping to eliminate this confusion, MyIllinois has numerous tools all in one place. One new addition to these abundant tools is the Course Explorer by CITES, located directly on the MyIllinois portal. In time, this course explorer will replace the prior Course Information Suite, located at a separate web address.

“This new feature was added last fall and will replace the old course explorer,” Carroll said. “We used input from students and focus groups to add the portal and concentrated on replacing existing functions and then added new features.”

Carroll explained that some new features include fewer clicks to get to the actual course schedules, information about enrollment availability and whether a certain class is currently open or closed. Along with this, the portal also includes enhanced search capabilities. With the old course information suite being retired at the end of January, these new features will only be available through MyIllinois, Carroll said.

Along with this course information suite, other tools on MyIllinois include registration information, personal records, campus news, financial information, campus maps and Illinois Compass. The MyIllinois team is currently trying to integrate syllabi and a “Favorites” feature so one can use the site to plan for future semesters.

“The tools are really infinite,” Nelson said. “MyIllinois is basically a one-stop shop for students, faculty and staff so they don’t have to go to a whole bunch of different websites using a million different login accounts. Everything is just there in one place.”

Although Carroll said the response to the MyIllinois portal has been stronger at the Chicago and Springfield campuses, it is becoming more integrated at the Urbana campus.

“I just started using MyIllinois last semester, and it is so easy to use,” said Robert Johnson, junior in AHS. “The website is really clear, and I can literally find everything I need regarding the University on the website.”

Carroll said the Student Services Development team is always trying to improve the technology and websites and create innovative tools that will be useful for students and faculty. Students and faculty can provide feedback and suggestions on developments or any other ideas to “go.illinois.edu/studentsuggestions”:go.illinois.edu/studentsuggestions.