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The University of Maine System board of trustees revealed in their Nov. 16 meeting that the system office is exploring options to create a system-wide software portal that will connect students to class information and online student services.
The idea is still in its infancy, and many questions are yet to be resolved — questions about what kind of software to use, what the cost will be to students and how the program will work. The board isn’t planning on returning to the issue until next year.
The idea of having one easy place to access FirstClass, MaineStreet, WebCT and Blackboard is a good one that will streamline the digital portion of the UMaine experience. But does it have to come with a $1 million price tag, as UMaine Director of IT John Gregory said?
Why shouldn’t the system look to the resources it has? The system could incentivize computer science students to write a program to combine the functions of the above-mentioned programs. Credit could be offered to the students who wrote the winning program, or a class could be created in which students work together with a professor and IT to write a home-grown program that integrates FirstClass and MaineStreet.
The system has come up with a good idea, but there’s no reason we can’t look within our ranks to make it a reality.
