Out with the old, in with the new. This summer, Schoolcraft will begin preparing to say farewell to WebAdvisor in favor of stepping into the future with a new, mobile-friendly portal called ‘Ocelot Access.’ 

While it’s still in its infancy and many updates will need to be made over time, the website has tremendous promise to better suit the needs of students, staff and faculty. Until Ocelot Access has received adequate feedback and has undergone the appropriate alterations, the portal will solely serve the student population while all others remain on WebAdvisor for the time being. 

“The goal of the conversion to the Ocelot Access is to have one place for students to go to for all student needs – registration, payment, financial aid, learning resources, Blackboard, email and so much more,” said Chief Student Services Officer, Dr. Laurie Kattuah-Snyder. “The look and feel of Ocelot Access will be the first expected benefit to students. It has a more modern look with ways to customize what student’s see on Ocelot Access based on the student’s needs.”

Ocelot Access will take you through a one screen sign-in process like what students see when entering their ‘Office 365’ provided accounts before being directed to the main homepage. This will cut out the middle step of being continuously redirected through the main school website to WebAdvisor or BlackBoard and its subset pages by directly linking them to the home site. Ocelot Access is arranged by cards that condense into further subsets based on the selection. For instance, the first set a user will see is to choose what population they apply to; Student, staff, faculty or CEPD.

Once inside their population’s page, numerous cards will be displayed on screen. One selection includes “My Info” which shows the individual’s personal information such as student ID, email, term balance(s) and more. Others display information within them when selected and are often linked to specific sites available on the Schoolcraft homepage or through WebAdvisor until the IT department develops this software enough to be standalone. Options that fall under this umbrella include Registration, Academic Advising and more. 

“Ocelot Access will be unique for the fact that it will be a mobile-friendly website that adapts to the view of a mobile user. The dimensions will shrink and instead of a ‘grid’ view, the cards will rearrange into a single file column for better viewership,” said Alan Parsons, Learning Management System (LMS) Administrator of the Information Technology (IT) department.

There will even be recreational themed cards that include helpful information such as current campus weather, a master to-do list, a Zoom centered card to join by Meeting ID, to schedule your own meeting, and any self-scheduled meetings that one might have. The IT department is still determining the plausibility of directly linking this card with instructor-created meetings as the website will be available to only traditional students to begin with, being the most important population. 

“Many recreational cards are removable based on the user’s preference, while others will be default for all. Users may use a ‘Discover’ tab to find any selective cards to be added back, if they wish, and to find any other cards that might not be shown on the Home Screen at start up,” Parsons explained.

Ocelots can expect to have a smooth sailing experience online come this summer. Credit students are advised to monitor their emails for further information about the official launch date and further updates. In the meantime, students can rejoice in the promising future offered in the blossoming Ocelot Access.