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My UW-Madison
How Departments Add Content

The portal is comprised of many modules, most of which were developed for a particular department or audience. Much, but not all, of the module integration and development work was done by DoIT. The My UW Service Team is actively seeking ideas for new content that meets user needs or interests, and campus groups are welcomed to request that their content be added to My UW.

Why Add Content?

  • Security: The portal provides a secure environment for accessing or hosting content. Users must first authenticate with their NetID and password before gaining access. The portal also allows fine-grained role-based authorization to portal resources, for example, only advisors are able to access the advising portlets.

  • Enterprise Application Integration and Data Aggregation: The portal provides a platform where campus applications can be integrated. This could be simply presenting a dashboard view of the application or it could involve aggregating data from several different campus systems into a single new, innovative application.

  • Increased Visibility: Roughly 96% of faculty/staff and 99.9% of students use the portal regularly to access campus resources. Hosting content on the portal, in addition to or instead of through other venues (e.g., department web sites), greatly expands the scope of your audience and increases the likelihood that more people will use your resource(s). Even if they come to the portal to access a different module, they may still be exposed to your resource at that time.

  • Alternative to Mass Email: Phishing is the attempt by scammers to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords or social security numbers, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in a seemingly official capacity. Some campus units have sent legitimate requests to their users for this type of information only to have the emails perceived by campus as phishing attempts.

    As an alternative to sending mass emails to gather sensitive information, consider working with the My UW Madison team to host your content or application in the portal. The portal provides a secure environment in which users must present their credentials (i.e., NetID and password) to access it. Instead of sending them to an external or suspicious-looking site, you can tell them to log into My UW.

How to Add Content

If your department or unit would like to add an application or content to portal, please submit a request to the My UW Service Team using the feedback form. Please review this list of questions as you consider adding new content to My UW-Madison.

Once the My UW Service Team has received your request, we will work with you to determine the best strategies to meet your needs and to maintain the overall guidelines of the portal. This process may include meeting with you or your staff, discussing timelines, reviewing the content provider agreement, testing your application, piloting the module, working on support issues with the DoIT Help Desk, discussing ongoing support and maintenance of the module.

Content Provider Agreement

You Are the Data Custodian
The My UW Service Team will work with you to add content to the portal and to keep you apprised of ongoing portal issues, however as the owner/custodian of the content, you are ultimately responsible for it. This includes issues such as assuring adequate uptime/performance, data accuracy and reliability, scheduling and announcing maintenance windows, providing a service message when the content is down, etc.

What to Expect from My UW
On an annual basis, the My UW Service Team will provide you with a report of any available usage statistics (e.g., page views, logins, Help Desk calls) for your service or module. You may receive periodic other communications, including information about planned outages, maintenance windows, upgrades or other changes to the portal.

The service team can also assist you in announcing your new module(s) to the campus community, including announcements in the portal itself, articles on the DoIT web site and/or other communications vehicles. You are also welcomed and encouraged to do your own announcements directly to your constituents.

Style Guide
Campus groups that add content to the portal will be asked to follow the Style Guide guidelines for My UW. The guidelines were created to prevent the portal from becoming unwieldy or evolving into an online advertisement for campus services as more resources are added over time. The guide describes how resources will be displayed within My UW.

Other Considerations
As you consider whether to add a module to the portal, please be aware that you will be expected to either provide end-user technical support directly or contract with the DoIT Help Desk to provide it for you. This support must include the provision of technical documentation to address common user and technical challenges. We recommend that you contact the Help Desk at least 30 days in advance of the launch of your module to provide sufficient time for documentation preparation and training of Help Desk agents. If you choose to work with the DoIT Help Desk, please be aware that there may be direct costs associated with this support, especially depending upon the volume of help requests received. For more information, contact Wanjiru Pontes at (608) 262-0284 or wpontes@doit.wisc.edu. In addition, there may be costs associated with development work, should you need assistance from DoIT’s Application Development and Integration group.