The MyKSC website is getting overhauled.
Following a test portal that was launched on March 6, the full release is set to officially launch over the summer, said MB Lufkin, vice president of enrollment and student engagement.
The new MyKSC portal will eventually take over what is currently MyKSC now.
However, new students coming into Keene State for the fall 2023 semester will be directed to the new portal straight away. This will kickstart the process of phasing out the current MyKSC, Lufkin said.
When a student logs into the new MyKSC portal, they will see information that is specifically curated for students, said Elise Morrissette, help desk team lead. The new website, run through a program called Pathify, allows “the ability to really cater that content to the person that’s logging in,” Morrissette said.
Though phase one of the website creation will be directed towards students, eventually there are plans to create a platform for faculty and staff to use, said Morissette.
On the new version of MyKSC, students will be able to join and create groups, a new feature for students to be able to participate in discussion boards and have easier communication with members of the group.
“Let’s say there’s a book discussion coming up at the library, anybody that’s attending that event can join that group and there’s a discussion board and a place to post content,” Morrisette explained.
Other new features include the addition of widgets, which allow students to see main highlights of their Canvas page with links to course pages and announcements, Microsoft 365, and their calendar. New widgets will be added as they come out for students to add to their new MyKSC homepage. “The great thing about Pathify is that they are constantly developing and working on new widgets and tools that we’ll be able to roll out,” said Morrissette.
Students can close out of those widgets if they do not want them on their homepage, Morrisette said.
Students will also be able to “star” certain tools and shortcuts they search to show up in the shortcuts section on the side of their homepage to allow easy access to that site, Morrisette said.
“The goal is when people log in it’s been set up in a way that’s intuitive enough that just by poking around you’re like, ‘Okay I get this,’ and you get it pretty quickly,” Morrisette said.
The new MyKSC website gives the ability to “drive student experience in a much more [your] own way. ‘How do I want to engage with content?’” said KSC President Melinda Treadwell.
Treadwell said the purpose behind the portal is to make MyKSC more user friendly and allow for students to engage with groups and get connected with Keene State as a whole easier.
Student focus groups were held in February, allowing students to interact with the new MyKSC prior to the test launch. Lufkin recalled it was “amazing to see how quickly students adapted to the new technology, how to make it work for what they figured out what they wanted.”
Lufkin said that the MyKSC redesign goes hand-in-hand with the rework of the keene.edu website, which will be entering a phase of reworking once a firm is hired to do so.
The plan is to move the current student functions from the keene. edu website over to the new MyKSC website so that it is all in one place, said Lufkin.
The purpose of keene.edu will shift to be primarily for information for prospective students, and the new MyKSC is designed for students currently enrolled at the college, said Lufkin.
An email about the test MyKSC portal was sent to all students on March 6. Students can provide feedback with a brief survey and become eligible to be entered in a drawing for a $100 gift card. To find the new MyKSC website, visit my.USNH.edu.
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
