The student portal was the existing plattform for student administrative resources at Mid Sweden University before the project started.

The student portal presented the students with primarily administrative functions for their studies, such as handling of their account for print outs, functions for registration on courses and transcripts from the system Ladok.

The student portal itself was working well, but no responsivity was present and there were not much integration with other learning resources at the university. The system also needed an adjustment to the new Mid Sweden University visual profile.

The project identified possibilities to establish a new integrated learning environment based on an upgraded version of Liferay, ie the software that maintained the existing student portal. It was not an option to invest in an other brand of software because of the many specific functions that already was developed by the university for the student portal and that needed to be maintained.

The project has been a joint project consisting of persons from the Learning Resource Centre, the IT department, the University Library, the Student Union and the Communications department at Mid Sweden University. Consultants attached to the web design bureau Osynlig AB has also been involved in conceptualising the new interface.

The development of the new interface has been based on the principle "Mobile first". The interface had to be usable in a mobile setting to meet the requirements for flexible and mobile learning. This was very constructive and underlined the need to organise information, functions and links conceptually and thinking about different behaviours when using smartphones, tablets or PCs etc.

Changing the aesthetics of an interface is one thing, establishing a learning environment is another.

The concept of the personalised interface with a personal menu has meant a lot of development of sub-routines and administrative functions. The system needed to handle the users correctly, according to groups, categories and roles. Each individual student is supposed to automatically get access to his or her specific resources in the menu and on the landing page/start page. This has also meant a lot of tweeking of other supporting systems.

The key concept with a personal menu in an integrated environment also mean that several web sites has needed to be emigrated from other web servers and content management systems to Liferay. That in turn has meant that a lot of the projects time has been spent on giving information, leading workshops, giving guidance and support, as well as organising courses for wed editors in how to maintain their web pages in the new environment.

The e-campus project development team consisted of members of the Student union, the IT department, the Learning and Resource centre, the University Library and the Communications department:

Thomas Berg, Lill Furudahl, Krister Holm, Mikael Reberg (project coordinator) and Joachim Sjövall.

DIfferent consultants at Osynlig AB.

Additional administrative and functional development and implementation by

Michael Andersson, Rikard Engström, Birgitta Hemmingsson and Lars Johansson.