On March 16, Camosun is set to replace Camlink with a new online registration platform called myCamosun. Created by software company Ellucian, whose website states it is “the market leader in higher education technology,” myCamosun is a long-overdue change, says Camosun registrar Scott Harris.
“Camlink was certainly dated technology,” he says, “and in my opinion, not meeting the expectations of our students or our staff.”
Harris says that getting myCamosun up and running is part of a larger ongoing project to re-implement the college’s student information system in a way that will better enable students to manage privacy concerns and academic planning.
“We weren’t able to offer some of the functionality for students that we wanted to around student progress. [myCamosun will allow] students to see all of their academic progress measured against the requirements of their program—what they’ve taken, what they still need to take, if they have any transfer credits, how it has been applied” in a simple and user-friendly way, says Harris.
Building a timetable in a visual manner, says Harris, using drag-and-drop functions, and built-in features—such as automatic errors if students plan in their online timetable to take a class they don’t have pre-requisites for— is one of the main changes in the new system, as is greater informational transparency, says Harris.
“Those are the kinds of things that just were absolutely not possible with Camlink,” he says.
Another long-overdue positive change coming in the new system, says Harris, is a function that allows students and staff to update their preferred name.
“[That’s] particularly important for many folks, but especially those that are in transition, or have transitioned and haven’t changed their legal name. I’m really, really proud that we’ve finally been able to make that happen,” says Harris.
myCamosun also gives the student more power over what information they want to share, and with whom, says Harris. Third parties will get their own myCamosun login.
“This certainly puts a lot more information in the hands of the student, a lot more transparency, and I think will be a lot more useful for students in managing their academic experience at the college,” he says.
For example, if a student wants a third party to have access to the financial section of myCamosun to make tuition payments, but doesn’t want them to be able to see grades, says Harris, that’s a personalization students can make on their accounts.
“At the college currently, we have what we call a FOI/POP form, and this is where students are basically granting other folks access to their information, and in many cases, the ability to conduct business on their behalf,” says Harris.
The college is trying to get away from the idea of having authorized third parties that can conduct business on an adult learner’s behalf, says Harris; instead, the onus is put into the hands of the student. The FOI/POP process required the student’s signature, but the college had no idea, says Harris, how to match that signature. A parent could have signed it, says Harris.
“We don’t keep signature records on file; it really introduced a lot of risk to the institution in terms of privacy legislation,” he says. “And so, again, this is going to put the power in the hands of the student to manage their own information-sharing relationships with whoever they choose.”
A myCamosun live help session for students will take place on Tuesday, March 17 from 11:30 am to 1 pm over Zoom; click here for more information.