As many students may be aware, Washington College was planning to implement a new portal system entitled Campus Cruiser for the 2001 Fall semester. Unfortunately, technical problems interfered with the planned switch. Campus Cruiser was tested this summer and found wanting.
"The new product was introduced to me upon my arrival here at Washington College," stated Billie Dodge, Director of Information Technologies. "It was a great idea, however we ran into a few slight problems which prevented us from integrating it into the system."
Campus Cruiser was chosen last year to replace Blitzmail. Recommended by Datatel, WC's Internet provider, Campus Cruiser was pitched as a great way to unite the campus.
As a portal, the new system would carry several features that most colleges already have. The system ran into a few problems, however.
"First of all, nobody liked the fact that the e-mail was web-based," says Dodge.
There was also a limit on the size of attachments. Email was not working right on the Macintosh computers and because of the new naming system, it was almost impossible to look up a student's name, making it inferior to Blitzmail in that respect.
Another problem was that the web calendar lacked certain features that the faculty desired. Dodge also stated that, "because the Internet base was off campus, the web was incredibly slow and annoying."
According to Dodge, there are still several compelling reasons to replace Blitzmail. Because it is free to use, no tech support is provided. When something goes wrong, it is up to the school to solve the problem. It also does not include many features that other campus e-mail systems are providing.
Professor Steven Cades also believed Campus Cruiser to be a possibly helpful system. One of the features the faculty was looking forward to was the direct connection to the institution's database.
Cades believes that one of the major problems with Campus Cruiser, however, was the fact that the college has a very bad Internet connection at this point in time. "The server is out of New Jersey. It simply takes too long for the information to travel back and forth," said Cades.
The school is currently in the process of acquiring new lines and updating our web capabilities. Cades also mentioned that, "the new system (Campus Cruiser) was not very well designed."
Dean Joachim Scholz was also very disappointed with how Campus Cruiser worked.
"The idea got started by a movement many colleges are going through to integrate information and technological functions into one system...the portal," Scholz said, explaining Campus Cruiser's appeal. He added that the college began debating whether or not to adopt a portal well over a year ago.
When asked about Campus Cruiser, Dean Scholz stated, "I don't really know much about it, except that it didn't work. Problems were promised to be fixed, and weren't."
"If the issues we have with Datatel are addressed, we might still implement Campus Cruiser," Scholz said. Nothing will be decided until at least winter break, but for now, WC will continue its use of Blitzmail.
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