The sites provide mostly lifestyle-type information, chat rooms and some academic related content. These sites profess to be the site for college students. The second type of portal partners with individual institutions to create a campus specific intranet. When integrated with the student information system, class schedules, exams and other academic information can be placed on the calendar. Student activities offices can send event notices to the students or those that have indicated certain interests.
Faculty can send announcements to all students in a particular class.
Through e-commerce interfaces, book lists for each class can be posted and links to the campus bookstore or external bookstores can be provided. As these types of portals become more mainstream, student affairs professionals need to be involved in the institutional decisions regarding which platform to adopt. In addition, the placement of e-commerce opportunities or advertising on portals must be evaluated. Automated student services have been available and utilized for a number of years. Proprietary student information systems have provided telephone registration, web access to student records and web based admission packages.