In late December, the Office of Information Systems implemented a complete redesign of OneTech. Tech students returned from Winter Break to find that the school site had adopted a new and polished look.
The redesign came into being after the migration of OneTech from Luminus to a new platform called Ellucian Experience.
“Obviously for us, it was a big undertaking. It was not something that one day we just decided we were going to do, so we tried to get as many people involved as we could, to tell us what’s going to work best for students,” Cody Parsons, a project administrator at Tech, said.
“We asked, ‘what’s going to make this the easiest change-over?’ because we knew this was a big change coming.”
All features from the old version of OneTech were preserved in the update. The new system includes upgrades, however, including cards that can be pinned to students’ personal OneTech homepages. This allows users to quickly and easily access the tools they need. The update also improved mobile compatibility.
“After a year of being remote, mobile became a key thing and we knew that we had to move in that direction as best as we could,” Parsons said.
Students expressed numerous views regarding the change.
“I like the new layout, and the easy access,” Josie Hall, a criminal justice major from Ola, said.
Another student, Dalton McPearson from Sheridan, voiced some concerns.
“As first semester freshmen, we had just become familiar with the old website and it was somewhat difficult to adjust,” the music education major explained.
“It’s hard to navigate,” another student and elementary education major, Breanna Stephens, agreed.
A common sentiment among students was some difficulty in adjusting to the change. Parsons offers advice to students having navigation troubles.
“If I have to say anything, what I’ve told most people is, get out there and use the ‘Search’ and ‘Discovery.’ That’s how you can find 90 percent of what you’re looking for,” the programmer said. “I think that’s been the biggest thing that people have asked me and I’m like, ‘Yeah, go to the search feature. Type it in and see if you can find it. If you can’t, let us know, and we can work to figure out how to get that out there for you.’”
The “Search” feature can be found under the “Discover” tab, which can be accessed by clicking the three stacked lines, or the “hamburger,” in the top left corner of OneTech.
The portal will continue to be available at https://onetech.atu.edu/.
