A free website launched a year and a half ago continues to serve students as well as staff and faculty to provide a variety of services.
With the site, people may access their own information relating to themselves and their status. This service has been around for a year and a half and can be found on campus, using the kiosks or visiting the website http://portal.elcamino.edu.
“We tailored the site to feature the functions the way we thought the students would want,” director of technology services John Wagstaff said.
Some students say they have encountered some problems while working with the portal site and that it’s difficult to get connected; the system was down or there are too many people trying to get on the site at the same time.
“It wouldn’t work at all the first time I tried it. I got help from someone else and still didn’t work, Valerie Brown, radiology major, said.
The site is to provide daily service, but it is monitored Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. unless the site is shut down for maintenance.
“Our intention is to make that portal as reliable as we can for you (students), the faculty and the staff,” Wagstaff said.
There are some students who find problems with the portal. Wagstaff said it could be the internet service provider causing students trouble when they log on or the problems with the site itself.
Students may send comments and concerns through the portal to the people who manage the site. The box is located on the bottom right side of the homepage.
“To make it effective, we are going to need some input so groups could help us take it to the next level on what we may want to add,” Wagstaff said.
Also, many members of the student body are unaware of the portal website.
“We need to get the word out about the site,” Wagstaff said.
Only 26 thousand students or fewer use the site compared to the actual number of students attending the college.
The site is to help the students get fast access to needed information in a reasonable amount of time like registering for classes, adding or dropping classes, making payments, checking financial aid status and more.
“On-line it’s a lot faster; it’s just like the phone, but on the phone it takes too much time,” Alex Claustro, English major, said.
Some students assumed that the portal offers special discounts to students who use the site services for paying fees. The only discount that is available is the discount on saving gas money rather than driving to EC plus fees for the college to be paid.
“No, there are no discounts,” Statish Warrier of information technology services, said.
One feature of the site is the free e-mail address. The e-mail address is available to any student enrolled.
Most students are unaware of the free e-mail address service.
“I didn’t even know about the e-mail address; I only used it for transcripts,” Diana Molina, sociology major, said.
The e-mail address is only good to be used to exchange e-mails with other EC students, staff and faculty.
The e-mail address is the student’s login ID followed by @mail.eccd.org. To set up an address students may click on EMAIL, next type in the login ID and then the same password used to log into the portal.
“Portal is also the site which the students can access their El Camino e-mail account, and we would really like for them to use it,” Wagstaff said.
