The instructions in this section are aimed at those who are not editors but use the Student Portal in their work to support students in their everyday studies or with their studies. You may be a teacher, administrator, study counselor, student union representative, service center employee, supervisor, or any other role that involves contact with students.
Video presentation of the new Student Portal
At the end of October, we held two meetings in Teams where we presented the new Student Portal for staff at the University of Gothenburg, one in Swedish and one in English:
Page contents
Student Portal – the Staff Portal for Students
Visit the new Student Portal
Even before the launch of the new Student Portal, you can visit the website to get an idea of how it will look. The editorial work is still ongoing, which means that some information will be updated or supplemented, but please familiarize yourself with the menu and structure.
Link to the production environment: https://student-prod.apps.k8s.gu.se
(You need to be connected to the university's network to access the login page. If you are working remotely, you will need to be logged in to the University VPN )
Canvas and the Student Portal
Why not just use Canvas, many are asking. The short answer is no, and it's because the Student Portal and Canvas have different purposes:
Student Portal: It's a website with general information aimed at all students at the University of Gothenburg. Anyone can visit the Student Portal and access all the information available here. The information here is relevant to all students and is valid for an extended period.
Canvas: It's a learning platform and can be described as the students' digital classroom. Course rooms are restricted to students registered for the course and contain information necessary for completing the course. A new course room is created for each new course instance, and the information in Canvas is only applicable for a shorter duration.
The Student Portal serves various purposes for students, and the information in the Student Portal and Canvas complements each other.
The Student Portal | Canvas |
|---|---|
Information portal | Learning Platform - Digital Classroom |
Used when needed | Used daily |
General information valid for a long duration of time | Temporary information specific to a particular course |
Communication from programmes, departments, faculties and university-wide information | Communication between teachers and students about the current course |
Assistance for study administration, teaching, self-study, examination, facilities, and campus | Course materials, instructions, links, assignments, assessments, course evaluations |
The Student Portal and Other Systems
In addition to Canvas and the Student Portal, there are various systems and digital tools that students will use during their time at the University of Gothenburg. The Student Portal serves as a source of information and support for these systems.
This is how you can use the Student Portal when interacting with students.
The Student Portal is also a support for you when you meet students. You can refer students to it if they need information on a specific issue (or access the information provided to students themselves), but it will also be possible to send messages to all students in a program.
A support and a place to refer to.
Here, you can find answers to questions that students may have about their studies and point them in the right direction if they need to know about things like exams or if they need to navigate the university.
The information on the Student Portal is regularly reviewed to ensure that all information is current and accurate. By linking to an information page on the Student Portal, you can be confident that your students will always receive correct information. By linking to the Student Portal rather than duplicating information in messages to students or in your Canvas course, you also save time.
Some examples for teaching
Hall exam
You have provided information that the students will have an in-person exam in the common exam halls on a specific date. On Canvas, there is course material and instructions regarding the content of the exam. You can also link to the Student Portal so that students can prepare for what to expect on the exam day: Examination in the common exam halls.
Take-Home Exam
You have provided information about an evaluative take-home assignment in which students are required to respond to several questions in an extended analytical text. On Canvas, you provide instructions for the submission task but also want students to receive assistance with referencing and to understand what plagiarism entails. You link to two pages on the Student Portal:
Grades and Study Results
A student writes to you on Canvas and asks how they can view their results when the entire course has been approved. You can tell the student that instructions for this can be found on the page Registration, Results, and Certificates on the Student Portal.
Leave From Studies
A student needs to take a break from their studies and asks you how to proceed. In this case, the information can be found on the Student Portal: "Leave and withdrawal of studies"
Study Administration, in general
In addition to the examples mentioned above, the Student Portal contains most of the information needed for students to manage their studies. Therefore, in most cases, you can find a page on the Student Portal that you can refer students to for information.
Some examples related to student life and well-being
Contact
Many of the questions that students may have regarding student life and their studies can be found on the Student Portal, but sometimes, of course, they may also want to get in touch with someone to ask a question.
New Student at the University of Gothenburg
As a new student with us, there are quite a few things that students need to do to get started with their studies. This information is compiled on the section New student.
A Student is Not Feeling Well
A student confides in you that they are not feeling well. On the Employee Portal, there is information that can provide support and guidance for you to address the student's well-being on Students' Work Environment and Health.
You can also use the Student Portal to see what information students can access on their own:
Send a brief message to all students in a programme
The new Student Portal has a feature called "student message." This feature allows you to post an announcement to students within a programme (all students enrolled in a programme, or an offering within the programme) similar to the announcements that can be posted on Canvas. Student messages on the Student Portal are visible to logged-in students on their "My Page."
More information about permissions for publishing and additional instructions will be available soon.
The Concept and Content of the Student Portal
New Simplified Menu
In the current Student Portal, information is organized based on the university's structure, including departments, faculties, or their equivalents, and central administration or its equivalent. To find information relevant to them, students must (1) know which organization is relevant, (2) locate the organization's section on the Student Portal, and (3) navigate through the organization's own menu. Students (and staff) have reported that this can be a complicated and sometimes impossible way to find the information they are looking for.
In the new Student Portal, there is instead a single, shared menu where students can always find the information they need.
Customized Information Based on Students' Participation in Studies
In the shared menu, there are pages that all editors in the Student Portal collectively manage. We refer to these as dynamic information pages because they dynamically change content depending on which student is viewing them.
At the top of these pages, there is always university-wide information applicable to all students at the University of Gothenburg. Following this, additional information and clarifications from the specific faculties and departments relevant to each student are displayed.
Students can log in to the Student Portal, and when they are logged in, the page is automatically set to display current information for the programs they are currently enrolled in. It's also possible to manually change which information is displayed, which is useful for you if you want to see the same information as your students.
My Page for Logged-in Students
Logged-in students can visit "My Page," which consists of tailored content for each student:
News, announcements, and events from the faculty and department they belong to, and (if they are programme students) from the programme they are enrolled in.
Current participation in studies, courses, and programmes that the student is undertaking.
Direct links to current course rooms in Canvas.
Links to pages for faculties, departments, and programmes (if the student is enrolled in a programme).
The purpose of displaying current participation in studies on "My Page" is not to replace Ladok but to provide contextually relevant information based on the student's studies. Here, students gain an understanding of which department and faculty their education is associated with.
Information about the student's current studies is retrieved from Ladok. However, there may be differences between what the student sees here and how it appears in Ladok in some cases. If the student has questions about this or is concerned that what is displayed on "My Page" is not "correct," always refer them to Ladok. What is in Ladok for students is what is accurate.
You can only access My Page if you are logged in with an active student account. No one else except the individual student can see the information on their own My Page.
To assist you in helping the student find their way, there is a design sketch below that shows what My Page looks like.
Information about the New Student Portal for Students
On the new Student Portal, we have provided information aimed at students about all the features and content in the new Student Portal. Please feel free to read that page for more information about the new Student Portal. The text is a first version and will be reviewed before the launch.
Finding Information in the Student Portal
As mentioned, the Student Portal is open to everyone. Extensive work has been done to create the menu and content, and hopefully, you should be able to find what you're looking for easily.
Here are some tips:
Set your preferences for which faculties and departments you want to see information from. This choice is saved and carries over to other information pages until you decide to make changes. (Before the launch, there may be instances where you need to adjust your preferences.)
Feel free to use the search function. However, please note that before the launch, there might be some pages that are not listed in the search function due to ongoing development.
If you're missing content, contact studentportal@gu.se, and we can either guide you in the right direction or investigate whether we need to publish new content.
Links to the Student Portal that Activate Local Content
In the Student Portal, local content on an information page can be hidden or shown by visitors by checking or unchecking checkboxes for each organization. For logged-in students, certain checkboxes are already pre-filled based on the students' organizational affiliation. For non-logged-in visitors, all checkboxes are empty the first time they visit an information page.
If you're sharing a link to a page in the Student Portal, you can easily ensure that the correct organization is activated when the person you're sharing the link with clicks on it. The page's address is automatically updated based on the selections of faculties and departments.
In the image below, we are on the "New Student" page and have chosen to display information from the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology. When we do this, the address in the address bar is automatically updated with the addition "i_keb=1".
Communication to Students about the Student Portal
When the new Student Portal is launched, students will be informed about it. More information on this will be provided shortly.
Contact
If you have any questions about the new Student Portal, you can contact us at studentportal@gu.se.