BY KATIE CARLTON
Drake is making the transition from blueView to myDrake this semester. While many students look forward to the update, some have mixed feelings about the upcoming change.
According to Drake Information Technology Services (IT), the main difference that students will notice with myDrake is that it looks more modern than blueView and that it focuses on providing more connections to outside sites.
“For the most part myDrake is really user friendly, it definitely got easier over the summer, whether they fixed kinks in the system or I just got used to using it,” said first-year Kaylee Trego. “Its layout is way less overwhelming than blueView.”
The myDrake portal provides access to information about campus life and campus functions including MyDUSIS, email and document sharing Drake IT said.
“Updates are always great,” said first-year Taylor Vroman. “In myDrake, the different sections are much more clear and easy to access than BlueView.”
The modern layout of myDrake is in contrast to blueView’s layout, which many students found dated and difficult to navigate.
“My biggest complaint about blueView was the visual organization of everything being in random boxes with unclear titles as to why each link is grouped with others, and multiple tabs of full of huge lists of equally unorganized links everywhere,” said sophomore Thomas Riordan.
According to Drake IT, Drake is making the transition to myDrake because the software on which blueView operates is no longer supported by its vendor. It is hard to operate the software on newer devices and platforms.
Though myDrake is designed to be an improvement from blueView, some students have encountered difficulties with the new platform.
“Some things aren’t easily accessible on myDrake,” Trego said. “Like the Sexual Harassment and Alcohol training stuff we had to take were impossible to find on myDrake.”
Trego said that neither platform was explained well at her first-year orientation. Though she favors myDrake, she does find herself occasionally using blueView because some of the online instructions only explain how to find something using blueView.
Likewise, Vroman said that myDrake was not explained to her well at her first-year orientation, so she has mainly used blueView.
For students still using blueView, they will find themselves unable to access the platform within a short period of time.
“I did get used to blueView so that makes the transition a little harder, but so far using MyDrake has been easy and I’ve been able to find everything I need without any trouble,” said Riordan.
The software blueView will be fully replaced within the Fall Semester when the main functions that blueView provides are accessible within myDrake, representatives at Drake IT said. Links and instructions that formerly pointed to blueView will be redirected to myDrake.
Vroman is looking forward to the change.
“When classes start I am glad Drake will be using the new system,” Vroman said.
You can access myDrake by visiting my.drake.edu and logging in using your Drake ID or email address and password. The How-to Guides on the IT service portal serve as help when navigating the new platform.
