As students moved back into their dorms on Jan. 5 and 6, the normal stream of university emails was joined by announcements that WaveNet — the portal used by students, faculty and staff to access Pepperdine’s many PeopleSoft systems online — was being upgraded.
“I didn’t need to go to WaveNet at all over winter break until right before classes,” junior Edith Lagos said. “When I did log on, it was confusing and took a while to figure out where everything was.”
The upgrade was the final step in a process that began two years ago when Information Technology determined that the original version was not meeting all the needs of the Pepperdine community, and the version of software behind WaveNet was being retired by Oracle. As Tim Bodden, the project manager of the WaveNet portal redesign said in an email, “This gave us the opportunity to not only upgrade the software of the portal, but to engage the community to help redesign WaveNet all in one.”
The central WaveNet portal was unavailable to students and faculty from 8 p.m. on Saturday until 5 p.m. on Sunday while the system was upgraded, leaving some students scrambling to find their schedules, pay tuition and make it on time to classes. By the first day of school, all the upgrades had been completed, leaving behind a new version of WaveNet that Bodden hopes will better serve the needs of the Pepperdine community.
The upgrade process included a committee of more than 50 students, faculty and staff who were important in shaping the new face of WaveNet.
“We wanted the community to be heavily involved in this project and make sure everyone was able to share their ideas,” Bodden said about the design process. “Some of the big ones were making it easier to use, mobile friendly, modernize and feel like it fits in with Pepperdine, and finally keeping content current.” Following the committee meetings, IT worked on the WaveNet redesign, determining a completion date of December 2012 after they went through the process of developing, testing and branding the new design.
Though the upgrade was scheduled to cause as little inconvenience as possible, the first few days of the semester were difficult for some students and faculty getting used to the new interface.
As the week went by, junior Joshua Harrison said he eventually came to like the new layout.
“I think it’s easier to find the stuff I use the most, and it works better from my phone,“ Harrison said.
Most of the difficulties that have arisen with the new version have been worked out, such as difficulty logging in to the system or being able to access specific information such as schedules and student rosters, and the new features and design are fully available to students and faculty. The upgrades were intended to streamline the online experience for the Pepperdine community by converging WaveNet with the main Pepperdine site and the community website (http://community.pepperdine.edu/) to share a more consistent layout and enable users to search the entire site. The biggest chance was creating different interfaces for students, faculty and staff, which will help simplify the site and make it easier to access information about grades, financial aid and discounts available to Pepperdine students.
While IT will continue making minor tweaks and yearly software upgrades to WaveNet, there are not currently any plans for another major change in the near future, though Bodden indicates that WaveNet will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the Pepperdine community.
