iCentral system sees increase in hits from old CMU portal
iCentral has experienced about 300,000 more hits per day than the CMU student portal did in 2009.
Last year the portal reached 5 million hits on the first day of classes whereas iCentral reached 6.5 million on the first day hits this year, said Roger Rehm, vice president of Information Technology. The system reached 6.7 million hits on Sept. 20 — a single-day record for the portal.
“In general, usage is clearly up across all our systems,” Rehm said. “In 2009 the website averaged 1.9 million hits a day. This year, the average is 2.2 million.”
The new network went through a trial period this summer and took over online this fall with very few problems, he said.
Student reactions to iCentral have been varied.
“The changes took some time to get used to,” said Rochester junior Jake Randall. “Finding the things I’m used to was difficult at first, but eventually I started to like the system.”
Randall said his favorite feature on iCentral is the academic link, which allows him to immediately see his class schedule without having to click through several links.
The student portal also came with a new e-mail format. The “Cmail” service has a more professional feel to it, said Northville junior Paul Young.
“I think the biggest change to iCentral is the new e-mail service,” Young said. “But something I can’t stand is the mandatory spell check before every e-mail is sent.”
Young said the problem with the Cmail’s spell check is that it considers every little detail throughout the message, making forwarding letters difficult.
The feature can be disabled in the composing section of Cmail’s preferences.
In addition to the e-mail service changes, Blackboard is also different from last year. Rehm said faculty members’ problems with the old blackboard system were strongly considered in developing the new format.
“For students, Blackboard is practically the same,” he said. “The real changes were made to the faculty side of Blackboard.”’
