The University’s Information Technology Services and the Office of Communications and University Relations are teaming up to create a new portal to PAWS called My LSU.ITS won’t make changes earlier than 2011, said Sheri Thompson, IT communications and planning officer. But ITS hopes to have the basic portal in working order this summer after final grades are posted.ITS hopes to make My LSU a personalized portal to access the PAWS homepage, Moodle and Tigermail. Students will still be able to enter all three directly.The main reason for the update is so students will only have to go to one place for school information. “We want to have a one-stop shop,” Thompson said.Another reason for the change is to update technology, she said.”When PAWS was created back in the ’90s, it was the latest technology. Everything was done in one place,” Thompson said.ITS started looking into the new addition to PAWS about a year ago. ITS and the Office of Communications and University Relations had their first meeting in December, Thompson said.My LSU will incorporate a lot of the same features as PAWS, Thompson said.My LSU will be likely be more like iGoogle, where students can add their own widgets, Thompson said. ITS is looking into several technologies to create My LSU. The product it chooses will determine the new features offered.For example, one product would offer a chat feature on My LSU similar to Facebook, Thompson said. Thompson said ITS is looking into what the focus groups said was important.”We just finished a bunch of focus groups on what people really wanted, and chat wasn’t very high on the list,” Thompson said.Focus groups did show the ability to customize My LSU was a high priority with the focus groups.Students in the focus groups also expressed interest in a weather widget, Facebook widget, a University Tools tab, campus map tab, emergency notifications, a TigerBites II interface, a TigerWare widget, a mobile version of PAWS and a fully integrated calendar.—-Contact Joanna Zimmerman at [email protected]