Students will soon need to get used to the new MyBGSU portal, as the old one will be taken down.

“The new MyBGSU portal was put up March 2013 alongside the old portal,” said John Ellinger, Chief Information Officer.

Because of existing communities that haven’t been migrated to the new portal, the old portal has not yet been taken down. It was originally supposed to go down in January, but will now be gone May 15, Ellinger said.

The new portal is using a software called Liferay, an open source portal which is used by many businesses and organizations, Ellinger said.

The old portal has been around for about 12 years, Ellinger said, and he thinks it’s time for it to be taken down.

“It’s time to to take that old portal down, take it out of the system, and out of use,” he said.

Keeping the old portal up puts strains on University resources, Ellinger said.

Ellinger didn’t see the point in keeping up a system that runs on old software and hardware.

While the University wanted to have a smooth transition for users, there needs to be a cut-off point, said Matthew Haschak, director of IT security and infrastructure.

“We were able to keep it up to allow people to at some time transition,” Haschak said. “You have to have a point where you do draw the line and say it’s got to be done.”

Ellinger recognized that there are still people who use the old portal, but they need to be ready for the transition.

Ellinger emphasized the difference between the portals being static and dynamic. Aspects of the old one could only be changed by ITS.

“With the new, “dynamic” portal, students can make small changes to the portal and modify the appearance,” Ellinger said.

Students currently see options for faculty on MyBGSU, but Ellinger said that option will not be visible to students by the end of November.

“We’ll probably have a working pilot of that when [students] come back in the fall,” he said.

He said in this way, the new portal will be more useful for faculty and students’ specific purposes.

Ellinger said the portal will experience updates in the future, such as things that can improve communication and collaboration between students and faculty.

“The portal itself is a work in progress,” he said.

Senior Alexandra Kolker said she was frustrated by the update because she had taken four years to get used to the old portal and wasn’t prepared for a new one.

Graduate student Brandon Hord said he dislikes the new portal because of his difficulties in finding options, such as checking grades.

“I think it’s a lot less intuitive,” he said.

If students are interesting on giving feedback about the new portal, they can email Ellinger at [email protected].