Coming soon to a screen near you ... Sussex Direct is a personalised website for students and staff at Sussex that will provide online access to the information you need to work, study and socialise at the University.

The staff working on Sussex Direct have developed a pilot version that was launched to almost 100 members of staff last month. Their feedback will help the development team to design the first release of Sussex Direct and to select appropriate hardware.

The main functions supported by the pilot and the first release will be administrative. For example, the pilot enables staff to update their personal and academic profiles. It provides academic staff with access to details about their students as both cohorts and individuals. People who are teaching or studying a course also have access to relevant personalized information from the Library, such as reading lists.

The Sussex Direct team envisage rolling out the pilot to a selected group of students in the summer term. For students, the personalised online resources might include timetable and curriculum information, reading lists, round-the-clock access to online learning materials, and email. Online registration is also under development.

Dr Rose Luckin (COGS) will be facilitating a series of focus groups in the coming year and will be running usability studies to make sure that Sussex Direct is easy to use, consistent and supportive of users with special needs.

For further information on Sussex Direct, contact the project director, Dr Simon Shurville, on ext. 3317, email S.J.Shurville@sussex.ac.uk. You can also visit the project web site at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sussexdirect/.