The myNEU portal: We can’t live with it, but we can’t live without it.

It provides students access to some of the most important information they need, but is impractical, inefficient and often impossible to use. The e-mail client is antiquated, driving many students to seek a third-party provider. Just 63 percent of the student body actually uses myNEU to access its e-mail, Vice President for Information Services Bob Weir recently told The News.

The system opens up new windows with nearly every click, and contacts and e-mails are not saved by default. Students cannot search their mail and the interface cannot compete with popular services like Gmail.

Course selection through the myNEU portal is another source of problems for students. We sit by our computers, waiting for the scheduled registration time. But then the system can’t accommodate the number of students trying to log on, making the process slower and more difficult for others.

Course selection for the fall, which began last week, was rife with the problems students have come to accept. The course registration system must be upgraded – students want to log on as quickly as possible so they can get into the classes they need. Technology must be upgraded to meet this demand.

As the course registration crashed, related programs also failed to work. Students struggling with registration could not access their schedule for the fall semester during peak usage, making it difficult to tell if they actually enrolled in classes.

Recently, ticket sales for major campus events have also gone online, allowing more students (including those on co-op) to purchase tickets. Too bad, however, that the system couldn’t accommodate student demand.

When tickets for the Springfest concert went on sale the evening of March 26, the system stopped allowing people to log in. Very few students could get tickets the first night of the sale.

Again and again, students are thrwarted in their attempts to communicate, register for classes or even just get tickets for a fun diversion because the myNEU portal and connected systems cannot meet the standards required of them.

Northeastern must learn to more effectively manage and operate its computer systems so students can communicate with each other and with the university. The university must make upgrades necessary to improve its intranet.

Northeastern needs to not only improve its communication technology, but it needs to learn to use its resources better too. Many announcements from the administration go unread because they are posted to myNEU but not e-mailed directly to students.

The myNEU portal does not meet the university’s goal for excellence in all areas. It is not excellent; it is subpar, at best.