Tufts Technology Services (TTS) announced the launch of AccessTufts 2.0, a portal primarily used by faculty and staff designed to centralize online information and services, on Feb. 5. According to the announcement email sent to the Tufts community, the relaunch “is the most ambitious release since [the] initial launch in 2016.”
Manager for Service Marketing and Communications Christine Fitzgerald and Director of Design Practice Thomas Cox, both of whom work for TTS, wrote in an email to the Daily that the updated system expands on the goals of the original system.
“The core objectives of the 2.0 update were to further deliver on the promise of ‘one place to go [for] administrative content,’” they said.
Fitzgerald and Cox said the update primarily focused on adding additional finance and IT content, as well as remodeling the visual design of the website.
“In addition to making a lot more helpful content available, we made huge improvement to the experience of using AccessTufts on mobile devices, knowing that many users rely on site to look up something quickly while on the go," they said. "These improvements, along with greatly simplified navigational structures, allowed us to improve the accessibility of the site as well."
"We hope that the community will appreciate the work we put into enhancing the search experience to be more robust and user friendly,” Fitzgerald and Cox said.
While the current target audience of AccessTufts is primarily administrative faculty and staff, the website’s designers and team hope to make AccessTufts easier for everyone in the Tufts community to use. Fitzgerald and Cox believe students should be most excited about the IT content. Though not new, the improved filtering makes accessing websites like SIS and Canvas easier for students, as well as access to eServe for student employees.
“With the introduction of expanded native IT content, we feel a value proposition for students is growing as well,” Fitzgerald and Cox said.
Some students said that while they were not aware of AccessTufts in the past, the announcement of the relaunch encouraged them to look into it.
“I had never heard of AccessTufts prior to receiving the email about the relaunch,” first-year Jessica DeBenedictis said. “Once I read the email, I was interested enough to check out the website, but I wish I had known about it before.”
Another student, Alicia Heia, echoed DeBenedictis' sentiment.
“Even though I hadn’t heard about AccessTufts before, the email definitely made me consider using the website in the future,” Heia, a first-year, said.
Fitzgerald and Cox said that AccessTufts will continue to develop, especially in response to demand from the Tufts community.
“We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us, which includes bringing in even more content, including IT technology user guides; improving the Dashboard feature in AccessTufts, and digitizing more transactions to eliminate paper forms, something our community is asking for.”
