By Rhiannon Saegert/reporter
MyTCC, the new communications platform that affects students and faculty members, is not only updated and more efficient, but it’s also better looking, a NE Campus audience was told Sept. 5.
“It’s definitely more visually appealing,” said Jeanette Jacobs, NE coordinator of academic support services. “It allows instructors to personalize it. It allows them to set the tone much more than CampusCruiser did.”
Jacobs’ presentation, Navigating myTCC and WebAdvisor, dealt with both the new and the familiar. She said myTCC, for example, features a customizable menu for students, allowing them to get rid of any links they do not need.
The new portal also allows professors to customize profiles, add pictures and change the background and text colors.
As for WebAdvisor, most functions have not changed, Jacobs said, but the site has some new features. It now has the option to create and save a Preferred List of courses weeks before a semester starts, rather than deleting the list every few days.
This way, Jacobs said, students can take more time and thought choosing classes and enroll in them whenever they are ready.
Students can now choose their own avatars and change the colors of their pages. Finding and joining clubs has also become easier with the new Organization Catalog.
If students have any problems figuring out the new portal, the site has an extensive section under myTCC Help, where they can submit support tickets to on-call technical assistants Monday through Friday during their business hours.
MyTCC Help also links to Blackboard’s Learn On Demand Learning Center, which hosts tutorials explaining how to navigate and use the site.
The site is more flexible for students as well as teachers than Campus-Cruiser, not to mention more well-organized, Jacobs said.
Students’ reactions to the new portal were generally favorable. South Campus student Rachael McManus liked the message board in particular.
“I actually did that through CampusCruiser last year, and I loved it,” she said. “If you’re in a class with someone you need to work with, you can use it to meet up somewhere.”
Jacobs, who taught the NE faculty and staff how to use myTCC, said she met some resistance from the faculty at first.
“As an instructor, there’s a whole lot more you have to prepare,” she said. “However, the response from both students and staff has been mostly positive.”
