Web Office Updates
The CATS Web Office continues to find itself inundated with work as it ventures through a second year of existence, and one of its latest developments is primed to have a significant impact on nearly every student who attends EIU in the future.
That development is MyEIU, a new online interface for potential students to obtain a wealth of information about Eastern tailored to their specific interests. Users of MyEIU will also be privy to scholarship information and details on specific academic programs, campus life, housing, and Charleston-area activities. When the time comes, the user will even be able to apply to EIU online.
“MyEIU was built to solve a huge problem with getting prospects to apply to EIU,” said Web Developer Nate Atkinson, who played the primary role in developing this interface. “The previous system, Azorus, created a difficult obstacle course of usernames and passwords for multiple websites. This made things very confusing for prospects.”
“We built MyEIU in-house here at EIU, allowing us to integrate the system tightly with Banner data and also integrate our information with more departments on campus. The result is a seamless system for prospects.”
Requiring just one username/password combination, MyEIU also allows users to circumvent that process altogether and log in via Facebook.
“MyEIU is a big hit with prospective students,” said Brenda Major, Eastern’s director of admissions. “My admission counselors are finding it’s a great tool for communicating with students in an engaging and personalized way that will distinguish EIU from other universities vying for their attention.”
Major shared several positive emails from satisfied users; prospective students have given her positive feedback ranging from praise of MyEIU’s usability to appreciation for its function in developing one-on-one relationships with admission counselors.
“This is a great tool to help us achieve the president’s goals to improve service and outreach,” continued Major. “It’s the perfect balance of technology and the personal touch students are looking for when choosing a college.”
Atkinson says while MyEIU has been a success since its Aug. 2 launch, there are plenty of improvements planned to further increase its usefulness to students and EIU alike.
“So far data shows the process with MyEIU is much smoother for prospects, and we hope this will increase our number of applicants to EIU,” said Atkinson. “This is exciting for us here in the Web Office, since we had fewer than six months to develop this system.
“Phase 2 of MyEIU is already in the works. Many departments have expressed interest in being able to contact prospective students who are interested in their department so that they may reach out and personally contact them. In Phase 2, this will be a reality. It will allow prospective students to know firsthand about the opportunities in their academic interests and help them decide to attend EIU.”
Updates to MyEIU aren’t the only thing in the Web Office’s sights for this academic year. In an effort to more fully utilize the www.eiu.edu homepage, plans are in place to publicize more EIU stories and events in the prominent rotating section near the top of the page. The space has always been used for this purpose, but the idea is to increase the number of items in the rotation and introduce new ones more frequently.
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