On Feb. 19, the advising department at Elgin Community College released a new app for the benefit of students, which allows you to schedule an appointment with your academic advisor from your computer or phone through the student access portal.

According to Director of Student and Academic Systems Kelly Scott, various departments within the teaching, learning and student development division, try to identify areas that support students’ success, giving them the importance and time necessary to work and create something that will help each of the students at ECC.

“We do hope that students familiarize themselves with new features because we want to provide tools that help them here at ECC,” Scott said. “We hope [the new features] are intuitive and easy for them to use.”

Office Assistant of Career Development Services Annette Workman said that another reason for the creation of these new features was the different departments’ desire to move along with technology.

“People, in general, are just busy,” Workman said. “They’re always on their phone or computer. It’s easier and more accessible for a student to use the app instead of taking the extra time to call or stop by the office.”

On the other hand, although technology is certainly shown in our lives as a tool to perform some tasks and activities in a more practical way, the spreading of a certain new app can have a slow or rapid diffusion depending on its promotion. Workman states that there are still many students who may not be aware that they have this possibility, therefore they still walk into the office to schedule an appointment.

“We are very pleased with the number of students who use this service so far,” Scott said. “While we cannot anticipate when it will be used by most students, the advising department will continue to promote it and more students will use it when they see how convenient it is.”

Bryan Aredando, a student at ECC, scheduled his first appointment of the semester with his academic advisor using the app for the first time last week.

“It was definitely easier than coming to the office to do it,” Aredando said. “It took me only a minute. I just had to choose between the dates, and that was it.”

According to Scott, there are some other novelties planned in terms of technology, like a new online catalog for students to use as they work through their academic planning process. The book catalog will not be printed anymore.

“The new online catalog will be organized in such a way that students will be able to easily search and browse ECC program information that they would normally look up in the paper catalog,” Scott said. “The goal is to make this information more accessible to students.”

The different departments are always working to make these ideas and features the best for students. Scott also states that there is always the possibility that students will not find a feature useful, which is another consideration at the moment, and advising must soon decide whether they’d like to continue to implement it or not.

“We are always interested in that feedback so that we may continue to make improvements,” Scott said.