Atlas Replacement Project

What is Atlas?

Atlas is Valencia College's branded title for our college portal. The portal provides authenticated access to other applications, information & processes that students, faculty & staff use in their day-to-day life at Valencia. Valencia has used Ellucian's product, Luminis as the “Atlas” Portal for about 20 years. The portal has grown throughout that time span to include custom web applications, communication tools, and integrations with products like Canvas, Banner & Degree Works.

Frequently asked Questions

Are we replacing Atlas?

The Ellucian product (Luminis) that we have built Atlas is at the end of its life. For this reason we are evaluating other tools for a replacement.

Will I lose access to the things I use?

You will continue to have access to all systems you had before. Atlas will look different, but will be much more user friendly.

Is there a problem with Atlas?

There is no problem with the stability of our current Atlas. We are looking for a new tool to provide a better user experience.

Is Valencia replacing Atlas with a mobile app?

Atlas will not be completely replaced by a mobile application. There may be a mobile application along with a new tool, but it will not be replacing the website. We are also prioitizing the mobile responsiveness of our new tool. Meaning that accessing the website will be optimized for mobile phone, tablet and desktop viewing.

What is happening to Atlas?

The Ellucian product (Luminis) that has been the backbone for our portal is approaching the end of its lifecycle. This means that Valencia will not be able to use the tool any longer. Valencia has formed a committee to evaluate a replacement.

New Dashboard should be powerfully simple

  • Unified communication to students, faculty & staff.
  • Continual innovation of services.
  • Timely content updates.
  • Transformative student experience.

Features to enhance the student experience

  • Cloud-based, meaning no downtime needed for upgrades or backups
  • Fresh & engaging interface
  • Real-time student communication
    • Important for things like: reminding students to pay for the courses so they won’t be dropped; registration start for the student; reminders to update contact information.
  • Student engagement
    • Building communication amongst students & between the college and the student using things like auto-populated groups
    • Addition to groups based on student status – for example a group for First time in College students
  • Ease of Extensibility
    • Content management in the tool needs to have a strong editing interface that would both help users stick to a predefined template, but also allow for easy distribution of information
  • Separation of Content management
    • Allow each group to edit only their own content
    • As in the CMS, for example, the library would only have access to edit library content
  • Out-of-the-box functionality for connecting to 3rd party tools
    • Email widget that will show the user their O365 mailbox
    • Assignments from Canvas
    • Advisor information from Banner
  • Outstanding mobile performance
    • Over 50% of the traffic to valenciacollege.edu in 2022 has been via a mobile device. Because this number only grows year to year, we need to make a responsive design a top priority.
    • A mobile application as part of the new portal is key
    • Priorizing products that don't require separate content management for website & mobile application.
  • Finally, one of the broader elements we were looking at was the focus on student by the vendor and tool. Looking at tools that are used primarily in higher education will almost certainly guarantee that our students will have a better experience with the tool in their time at Valencia.

Timeline

  • Completed Preliminary research for infrastructure replacement for Luminis
  • Completed Request for Information published by Valencia's Procurement department
  • Completed Committee review of results from the RFI
  • CompletedCollege decision on product - Pathify
  • Starting Soon Scope assessment to coordinate functionality with available time/resources
  • Test instances install, configure & redevelopment
  • Training Material creation
  • Phase I Soft launch
  • Phase 1 Hard launch
  • End of Luminis extended support: June 2024
  • Retirement of Luminis
  • Phase II additional features