The Student Communications Committee meets every two weeks to discuss the various modes of communication linking students to NIC services, events, faculty, course information and announcements.
“We have, in our plans, to tie the MyNIC, NICMail, and MyNIC Courses services together in one login. This could happen as soon as August 2012,” said Steve Ruppel, director of information technology. “I want to assure you that this is in our active planning at this time.”
The committee included 12 faculty representatives as well as ASNIC Vice President Nick Dimico and ASNIC Senators Corrine Van Ostrand and Cassie Stephens. The goal is to continually examine and improve communication for students, the main portal of which is the my NIC.edu website.
Assistant Registrar and Committee Chair Chantelle Black discussed “what we can do to make sure students are informed.” Dimico questioned whether ASNIC was allowed to e-mail messages out to all NIC students.
“We want to start advertising our events but we don’t want to do it through our NIC e-mails,” Dimico said. “You have to make sure we’re not blacklisted by sending out thousands of e-mails at a time. It’s something we have to coordinate,”.
Ideas offered to keep students informed included a student version of the Week’s Worth, setting up a website, or using our current website, myNIC.edu, with an “NIC Today” link or online events calendar.
Communications and Marketing Specialist Tom Greene said compiling a student’s Week’s Worth would be a lot of work. “It’s not something that will happen overnight,” Greene said.
There was some question as to how often students check NIC.edu once they are past the registration process. Dimico said he has to check everyday for classes.
“We have 160 students and they are Johnny-on-the-spot checking e-mails,” said College Skills instructor and TRIO Student Support Services Coordinator Holly Edwards.
In a recent survey, 20 students were asked, “Are you satisfied with myNIC.edu as is, or would you like to see changes?” Ttwelve said that they were fine with the website; eight said they would like to see changes.
Jamie Riddle, 21, criminal justice, Anaconda, Montana and former student of Hawaii Pacific University said, “It’s one of the easiest I’ve ever used.”
Cody Thomas, 23, business administration, Athol, a self-described “night-owl” said he is not happy that the services tab shuts down in the middle of the night.
“I would like to see an interactive web page calendar,” said Ander LaPlant, 19, computer science, Hayden.
R.J. Keener, 49, computer engineering, Silverton, said he would like to see a link to Angel and e-mail outside of login to myNIC.
A common complaint was the current need for multiple logins to access both e-mail and course information.
