One proposal for enriching Hopkins that continues to attract scant attention is the creation of a student Web portal. Though the idea may sound bland, it's actually inspiring. The creators want to make an information hub, or entry point, for access to all Hopkins-related Internet resources. This means students can access everything from the registrar's login to the library search to a schedule of what's happening on-campus with a single Web site and with minimal effort. The creators may also add a log-in feature, where, like Google's log-in feature, you can customize the information delivered to you.
The portal is a small idea that can go a long way. First, and most importantly, it may help ease the feeling of disconnectedness within the Hopkins community. This is especially true for graduate students and alumni. Most alumni unplug from Hopkins after graduation. A site littered with Hopkins news and information might close the information gap that keeps many alumni out of the loop. As it concerns graduate students, the portal will connect the existing Graduate Representative Organization (GRO) portal with the larger campus information network, thereby integrating graduate-specific information with the overall community.
Undergraduates will benefit the most. If the creators do their job right they will fashion content emulating undergraduate favorites like The Daily Jolt. This means including relevant information like restaurant reviews and campus headlines -- and, if not on the front page, then somewhere close.
Uniting disparate information sources will be another positive consequence of a portal. As it exists now, Hopkins' Website hosts about ten different portals for different things. StuCo has its own, GRO has their own, the Center for Social Concern has its own, the Office of Greek Life has its own. A full-blown Web portal will connect all these portals and give them a single, fresh face.
With new dorms being built and the administration constantly talking about building campus community, it makes sense to round out the edges with a community information hub. It also makes sense to keep students informed. This is especially true now, with shake ups being made in the security van schedule and alcohol policy. Making this information easily accessible online will give students and administration fewer headaches.
A portal might even help with new-student recruitment. Most students do much of their college search online in order to soak up as much information about a potential school as possible. Adding a portal only increases the ease with which prospective students can tap into the Hopkins community and see what we can offer.
It is one thing to create a portal and another to make a good one. The portal's creators need to go to great lengths to figure out relevant information and create it right. Because no one really cares about the portal right now, the site designers will need to pull students' teeth in order to figure out what to offer. Last week the designers held a pizza info session to get student feedback on the portal. This type of openness should continue aggressively if the portal is to succeed.
The portal's designers must work to ensure that the portal doesn't become yet another irrelevant initiative. If the portal is done in the spirit of detached decision-making --the same spirit which bred the Levering redesign and Fall Festival -- then it will become a symbol of irrelevance and apathy. Let's hope it is done right so as to avoid more of the same.
--Mike Huerta is an applied math and statistics and political science major from Ft. Bragg, N.C.
