Comments for Web Makeover Docs

Comment on stub for RFP by Doug Ramsay

Doug Ramsay — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:24:53 +0000

How much sharing of data is required between the Middlebury site and the Monterey site? That is, do you envision them being a) totally separate, b) sharing some data, or c) sharing the entire backend, and with authorization separating the two.

Comment on Academic Departments by Judy Mayer

Judy Mayer — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:43:39 +0000

Having an interactive student/alumni section would be very helpful for our dept.

Comment on Academic Departments by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:11:46 +0000

Rosters would be restricted to faculty/coordinators, just as they are now in Banner. I do think that it would be nice to have a feature to permit registered students to have access to the roster as well, as often they don’t know each others’ names.

As for lists of majors, there are plusses and minuses, although privacy law might trump.

Comment on Academic Departments by Joanna Shipley

Joanna Shipley — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:04:34 +0000

Re the suggestion of having a list of current majors on the site… I’d be uncomfortable with lists of majors or course rosters being viewable by the general public, but don’t know what the policy actually is. (Seems like a potential privacy issue… but I could be wrong..)

Comment on Academic Departments by Joanna Shipley

Joanna Shipley — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:55:23 +0000

re: Par 16 – Yes – I agree it would be desireable for the new system not be limited to IE as the only supported browser.

Comment on Academic Departments by Joanna Shipley

Joanna Shipley — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:51:03 +0000

To add to the items in either Curriculum or Resources – beyond “independent project guidelines” – we’d need a section for Research in the Sciences that could incorporate our Independent Study/Senior Research info, thesis titles, and more. And when it happens, perhaps include the department’s Senior Work requirements in the same section…

Comment on Academic Departments by Peter Hamlin

Peter Hamlin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:42:09 +0000

Nice work, Renee and Jason. Thanks!

Some comments from me:

I think an additional category of “department needs” for music would be ensembles (which includes musicals) and applied faculty.

I think the principle reason why we “underuse” web sites is time. This is also why web sites (like mine) aren’t interesting — I need to put something up quickly, I do know how to make a more interesting interactive site but don’t have the time to do it. I tend to shoot for a site that serves the purpose with the least need for tweaking.

Alumni profiles yes!!!!! Perhaps also links with almuni office so when students update their info, they don’t have to do it several separate times (or not realize one part of the web has an old version). This is a challenge, though — it’s easy to forget about alumni pages and realize some of the entries are 10 years old and you don’t have a quick way to get in touch with the person to get it updated.

I really want to have more audio on the music dept web site, but live concerts usually sound a lot worse when heard as recordings. If you saw the concert they are a good record, if you are a visitor you might think the ensemble sounds worse than it does. So I’ve been a little nervous about this. Slight flaws in recording, for example, can make the recording seem amateurish by comparison to professional recordings. There is some concern about rights, too.

With those caveats, though, yes, we would love to have more of an audio/vidio presence for music performances.

When i started here in 2004, I didn’t like Segue — it was awkward to use, and not flexible. Not sure if the new version would work better for me. I’ve used Dreamweaver which is easy to update and administer. i hope you will give a lot of choice about authoring tools — it can make a big difference whether someone enjoys messing around with their web site or not!

18 is good!

21 is good too — nice thought to have interconnected information, dynamic information, etc.

This is all really excellent. I’ll end with the comment on time again. Anything that lets us do things efficiently is good! (I.e. dynamic information links).

Comment on Center for Campus Activities and Leadership (CCAL) by Ryan Kellett

Ryan Kellett — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:28:28 +0000

Yes and no. CCAL is now responsible as the contact office for assigning/registering web space, email, and passwords for student organization webspace (FTP upload). LIS, however, is the current structure for supporting the development of these websites, in the technical space. Blogs are also available for these orgs which require considerably less support. Registered student orgs can put up what they want with the Middlebury name but have a few things they can’t put on their site (e.g. payment system must go through Bookstore).

Comment on Center for Campus Activities and Leadership (CCAL) by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:51:38 +0000

Would the CCAL site be an appropriate umbrella housing student org sites? And who would have editing authorization for the core site vs. constituent org sites?

Comment on Internet Strategy Taskforce: Spring 2008 by Redesign Middlebury Online « Midd Blog

Redesign Middlebury Online « Midd Blog — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:26:41 +0000

[...] So, it’s an opportunity! LIS, at the appointment of Ronald D. Liebowitz himself, has formed up the Web Makeover Committee with new Dean of LIS Mike Roy at the helm. Yes, that’s right, it’s kinda like Extreme Makeover, Website Edition. Of course, the Makeover comes on the heel of last year’s Internet Strategy Taskforce report. [...]