While the student neighborhood's front porches are a symbol of the Ghetto and Darkside, starting this February, faculty, students and staff will be introduced to a new digital gathering place called Porches.

Consider it a personalized Web page. According to project manager and assistant CIO Jaci Jackson, Porches will offer campus information in one organized location. By replacing the university's currently underused portal (udportal.udayton.edu), Porches will combine financial aid, human resources, student and finance applications in one easy to use database.

"Even as recently as last year, students wouldn't know where to check course schedules and it would be a hassle finding menus or addresses," said senior Walker Foley, who appears in the Porches online commercial. "The UD portal site was not up to par with what it should be at an academic institution."

Along with not being up to standards in content, it also lacked in aesthetic appeal. This new system will fix that along with adding to UD's online presence.

"Porches features an attractive new look that fits the University's branding guidelines and complements our Web presence with internal communication," said Jackson.

The portal is an entry point for accessing information and campus tools relevant to students, faculty and staff. This can prove especially beneficial for promoting to incoming students.

"It's important that especially new students have all the necessary resources readily available to them with just a click," Foley explained.

Not only will the information be accessible in an organized manner, the information shown on a student's portal could be significantly different than that found on a peer's portal, or even a faculty or staff's page. A user will have the option to modify his or her page by organizing and prioritizing important user functions while minimizing channels of lesser importance. Information specifically for the user will pop up and can be customized to further fit needs with information regarding classes, activities and clubs.

Students will have the ability to view grades and register for classes through the new portal, but new amenities won't end there. Sports and news updates along with campus and personal announcements links will also be provided on the page.

The campus announcements channel will display any campus emergencies or school closings, while personal announcements are targeted to specific groups. Tabs will be available to search the menus for dining facilities. Also, a user will be able to use Porches to search Google, click on links through udayton.edu or search addresses in the UD network.

A "My Tab" option will encompass custom content such as customizable news feeds, favorite links, or even Facebook news feeds.

Group Studio will be provided on the portal allowing students to log in to share information for class or extracurricular activities. Groups may be public or restricted, with announcements, message boards, photo albums, calendar, chat and file sharing.

Porches allows for the student to channel the layout of the portal to make it more suitable and organized for the user. Faculty can access tools that will help them communicate with students and collaborate across campus. Staff will have one location to access tools and databases to do their job.

Before second semester started, 90 users began testing Porches to work out the kinks to have the portal ready to be introduced in phases starting in February.

"Porches will continue to grow and evolve; there will be more content and functionality, all to provide tailored tools and communications that meet the needs of our campus community," Jackson said.

To learn more about this Web site, sign onto porches.udayton.edu.