Louise

MyEd Start Page

The elearning portal for the University of Edinburgh looks very like the portal at Louise's institution.

EASE

Louise has no problem getting to the log in screen. But she does find EASE a bit odd. Why does she have to go away from the start page only to return when logged in?

MyEd Main Page

Louise finds the main MyEd page to be a very busy place as well. She wonders what MLRP is and why it's so prominent on the page. None of the announcements are relevant to her either.
She does find it slightly disconcerting that everytime she logs in, the portal has a different design template. Maybe there's a control panel somewhere that would turn that feature off.

At least the Library is clearly marked in the main (tabbed) menu.

Library

The library page in MyEd has a number of, visually, equally weighted panels.

It takes Louise a while to find the button she thinks will open the library search facility. What's the difference between "Search Library Catalogue", "Library Online" and "Library Resources"?

Louise makes it to the library which opens in a new window. This is obviously a completely different piece of software with no design continuity with MyEd. There are a lot of apparently unrelated elements on this page but searching seems clear enough.

Louise wonders why some of the buttons at the top look like they are selected, some look they're not and some look like they're in between.

Unfortunately Louise can't remember the exact titles or authors of the books she's supposed to read. She thinks they might be on the "Course reserve" page.

But her instructor isn't on the list.

And which of the two Education departments is her department.
Time for some help.

Where have all the buttons gone?
Louise finds herself in what appears to be an entirely self-contained "help" website. There are no links back to the library. All the links here link to other help pages.

Lousie gives up and decides this is one task whe can't accomplish by herself.
She'll have to head over to WebCT and email an instructor.