Reach out directly to each and every one of your alumni with a My Alumni Portal that is tailored to their specific interests!
- Each of your alumni has one-click access to news and activities that are most meaningful to them, reinforcing their ties to their alma mater.
- Alumni configure their own alumni portals, selecting information from different university sources, with links to web sites for alumni classes, alumni clubs and affinity groups, athletic teams, academic departments, student organizations, etc.
- Your alumni office establishes a "two-way street" to communicate directly with each of your alumni, following their specific interests.
- By tracking how the interests of your alumni evolve through the portal system, you can then adapt your alumni communications accordingly.
1. How will our alumni benefit from My Alumni Portals?
2. How will our institution benefit from My Alumni Portals?
3. How will our alumni use their portals?
4. How is content loaded into the system?
5. How do we get started?
1. How will our alumni benefit from My Alumni Portals?
Today the home page of your alumni web site may be your alumni's main portal into your institution.
However, each of your alumni has interests that they may not even be able to access directly from that home page, for example: their class web site, their alumni club web site, or web sites for alumni affinity groups, athletic teams, academic departments, student organizations, etc.
In fact, many of your alumni may not be fully engaging their interests in your institution, simply because it is too much of a hassle to visit four, five or six separate webs sites to keep up on news and see what is going on.
With a My Alumni Portal, each of your alumni will have one-click access to the news and activities that are most meaningful to them. This will re-engage them with the university, reinforcing their ties to their alma mater.
2. How will our institution benefit from My Alumni Portals?
Firstly, you will re-connect with many of your alumni.
Once they have set up a My Alumni Portal, you will have established a "two-way street" to communicate directly with each of your alumni, in accordance with their specific interests.
Your alumni office can channel information through the alumni portals, in accordance with the specific interests of your alumni. For example, they may select to receive news feeds on specific themes such as general university news, alumni news, athletics, arts and culture, academics, etc.
Your alumni office may also use an "Alumni Flash!" feature to communicate priority news bulletins to alumni through their portals, such as the appointment of high-level administrators or trustees, big sports victories, landmark events at the university, or the launch of a capital campaign. You may also send a direct message to individual alumni, for example, to thank the person for a gift to the Alumni Fund!
My Alumni Portals will also help different groups within your institution to re-connect with their alumni: forging renewed bonds among classmates, bolstering membership in regional alumni clubs and professional alumni associations, and re-connecting alumni with sports teams and student organizations.
By tracking how the interests of your alumni evolve through the portal system, you can then adapt your alumni communications accordingly.
3. How will our alumni use their portals?
To start, it is easy for an alumnus or alumna to set up their portal.
The user signs up for a My Alumni Portal by entering their alumni login and password. If you have not already set this up for your alumni, we can provide it.
The user then configures his/her portal in three easy steps:
- Select Interests, where the user selects his/her specific interests, which may include their alumni class, alumni clubs and affinity groups, athletic teams, academic departments, student organizations, university news feeds, etc.
| Each interest that the user selects (up to a specified limit) will appear in the section menu of the portal, with a link directly to the web site that corresponds to that interest. Using "College U" as example, if the user selects their alumni class, which is the class of 1984, there will be a link to the College U Class of 1984 site. Or the user may select a link to the College U Club of Honolulu site. |  |
- Select Features, where the user selects those interests that may appear as feature blocks on the portal page.
For each feature, the user selects among specific display options:
- whether to display a photo, if available;
- the number of articles or links to display for that feature;
- whether to display just the title of each article or link for that feature or the title with a short summary;
- whether to display the date that the feature was last updated; and
- whether the user wishes to be contacted by email when there is 'hot' news for that feature.
Here are how some feature blocks may appear on the portal page:
Other options may include:
- a campus picture block, where a set of pictures are rotated on the portal page;
- news channels, where the user can select to receive news feeds on specific themes from your institution; and
- other options that may be specific to your institution.
These options may appear like this on the portal page:
Once the user has configured his/her portal, it will appear live at the My Alumni Portal URL for your institution. (For example, my.institutionname.edu) The user either signs on with a secure login/password or is automatically recognized by cookies upon going to that URL.
The user can then reconfigure each of these selections by clicking on a "My Preferences" link at the top of the portal page. As the user's interests evolve, so does the user's My Alumni Portal.
4. How is content loaded into the portal system?
The portal system can accept content through automated channels in different standards or through manual updates.
Your institution may have already set up automated channels for general news, alumni news, athletic news or other information. Some organizations within your institution, such as the student newspaper, may have also set up such automated channels. We can provide you with the tools to set up automated channels for each of the sources of content that will feed into your portal system.
For automated channels, our preferred standard is Resource Site Summary (RSS) files. We are able to work with each of the following standards for transferring information over the Internet:- Resource Description Framework (RDF) Site Summary (RSS) files
- Open Content Syndication Directory Format
- Channel Definition Format (CDF) files
- HTML Files
- JAVA applets
- Wireless Markup Language (WML) Files
- XML-RPC (Remote Procedure Call)
- SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
- iCalendar Standard
It is also possible, and common, to load content into the portal system manually. For example, it is easy for webmasters of an alumni class or alumni club to log into the portal system and enter titles, text and pictures with links to feature information on their web sites. The key is to identify a person who will be responsible for uploading the information for each channel.
Our administrative interface includes a section where a project manager in your alumni office can assign user permissions for specific content channels. The project manager enters the name and email of the person who will be responsible for a channel. Upon enabling that person's login, an email is sent to the person with a secure web link to activate a login and password. The person then has secure access to upload content for that specific channel.
5. How do we get started?
To start, identify the person who will serve as the project manager to implement My Alumni Portals at your institution. The project manager will:
- identify sources of content throughout your institution (i.e. alumni classes, alumni clubs and affinity groups, athletic teams, academic departments, student organizations, etc.);
- set up channels for those sources, either through automated information feeds or through manual entry with our help, as needed;
- finalize the standard design for the My Alumni Portal for your institution we offer many templates to adapt to your specific needs, and we can also offer your alumni the capability to tailor the design; and
- oversee the promotion of the My Alumni Portal to the alumni of your institution.
We will work directly with your project manager on each of these stages to ensure a successful launch and roll out of My Alumni Portal at your institution!
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