Editorial: UMS’ chance to foster student entrepreneurs

Posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009, 1:25 am

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.

Editorial: Student Senate’s chance to be the voice of the student body (October 1, 2009)
Editorial: UMS manages to close the budget gap (February 16, 2009)
UMS refuses to hand student info to RIAA (March 26, 2007)
Editorial: UMS should cut consultant costs first (April 13, 2009)
Editorial: Centralization of UMS would not help UMaine (January 29, 2009)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009, 1:25 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.

Matthew Newman says:

December 2, 2009 at 8:26 am

My other comments on this issue are available at: http://mainecampus.com/2009/11/23/ums-portal-may-not-cost-students/#comments

But suffice it to say, if there are students, faculty, staff, or folk of any other ilk who have the drive to contribute to in-house solutions to our ‘courseware’ needs… contact me (I am on first class). I would be happy to talk with you, and work with you so that people don’t needlessly re-create the already existing wheels, but can co-ordinate their efforts productively.

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