Tag Archives: video

Investments and Treasury

Stakeholder: Derek Hammel

Web Makeover Contact:  Jai Shankar

  • Ability to publish/post documents to the site
  • Search box/A-Z menu
  • Ability to post PowerPoint presentations or “Endowment 101” education materials
  • Streaming data across top or bottom of page, example: financial news or ticker symbols
  • Ability to access policies currently in place
  • Link from this site to articles/sites of interest
  • Interactive map of the world to see where Middlebury’s investment managers are located or operate
  • A video showing the background of the endowment and the important role it plays for the College’s operations
  • Ability for public to submit endowment-related questions via the website
  • Ability to educate prospective donors/public about the “lifecycle of an endowment gift” that shows people what actually happens to their endowment donations when they are added to the overall College “Endowment Fund”
  • Secure log-in feature for trustees or investment committee members to access meeting materials
  • Ability to view debt market, equity market, municipal finance market data

Business Services

Stakeholder: Tom Corbin

Web Makeover Contact:  Jai Shankar

E-commerce group:

  • Web site is critical to generate revenue
  • Web site to be used for “advertising” and “marketing” (since policy prohibits advertising in paper form on campus)
    — must be a priority to “self-promote” to drive business
    — also: can we include links to corporate sites in future?
  • Book store
    -The Bookstore should not lose the Bookstore link on the bottom of the homepage since at least 35% of the ecommerce Bookstore traffic comes through that method, and depending on the time of year it might even be more.  If you were to move that Bookstore link to the top of the Middlebury homepage, I would have no objection to a better location
  • That nothing coming from the Web Makeover Team affects the hosted solutions and Bookstore websites in a negative way, other than perhaps header and footer updates coming from changes to the look and feel of the College Web.
  • – Link on all web pages is desired
    – Bookstore can assist in implementing any new branding to general look, and especially header/footer areas of website.
  • Build cross-links among auxiliary services and other web sites
    Examples:
    — an ad in the Addison Independent online links to a season pass order form; on the same page as the order form are up-to-day/minute links to golf course conditions (if it’s October), to athletic events, to book store for purchasing apparel, etc.
    — Snow Bowl page might have links to 51 Main for après-ski specials
    — Bread Loaf School of English site should have obvious links to book store for purchases
    — Events at CFA, McCullough, Mead should have links to Grille, 51 Main (including specials)
  • Make links/relationships easy to develop, including to/from MBS and CBORD
    – Athletics
    – Student fund raisers; gift systems
    – 51 Main
    – Facebook
    – Pro-shop
  • New service ideas
    – sign up for T times on golf course
  • Make site richer in graphics (less “business” like)
  • Allow “pop-ups” for special offerings (e.g., Grille, Bookstore, etc.)
  • Make site compatible with mobile devices – focus significant effort on this for future
    – Grille orders
    – Book orders (as leave class)
    – Snow updates
  • Guest/visitor access
    – have pages for those interested in arts or sports (and related links to e-commerce sites)
    – allow them to build “customized” pages of information they’re most interested in

Information group

  • For students, employees, web should promote “self-service” in finding info (e.g., tax info)
  • — Easy to create & update FAQs
    — Links among different “sites” (areas on campus) (not just what’s in your own dept)
    — Search results need to be relevant & prioritized appropriately
  • Need Policies/Procedures that can be accessed/updated readily; consistently formatted
  • Dining
    — Need much more flexible design for display of calendars, menus
    — Website should display meal offerings, in a way that differentiates Middlebury from other Colleges
    — Current navigation hides too many sites
    — Relevant search results needed
  • General design – need different look & feel for different areas / functions
  • Hard to edit/update policies, procedures, documents (and web site in general)
    — interface is confusing; need simple editing functionality (esp. when just update info once a year)
    —- how can we make this efficient to get departmental input, review, approval?
    — need way to display calendar/schedule of events (such as safety training sessions)
    If things are lacking from the web site, how/who determines where they go?
  • Forms design / formatting / printing is critical  (Reprographics; Faculty housing; Snow Bowl; Golf Course)
    — Need to be able to extract information that’s important and copy/move to other applications
    — Need to be able to edit/update forms without depending on web services
    — Make easier for departments/users to create & update form fields/text
    — Forms navigation should be intuitive (“back” button on browser should work, for example)
  • Need College Policies & Procedures Web site
    — some may be open to public viewing, others limited to designated users (similar to Emergency pages)
  • Need Data Warehouse (web interface, drawing on Hyperion/Banner info)
    — Example: RPI
  • Web support – need clarity, timeliness, information online that is easy to find for web support
    — make clear how to get support & what to do if feel support is “cut off”
    — if we think something is a “bug” how do we know if it’s been fixed?
    — will there be a way to make suggestions for improvements? For new functionality?
    — shouldn’t take 10 days to get a response to an inquiry of “I’m new; how do I create a web site for my dept?”

Payment and Procurement

  • On Line training functionality
  • Secure access to certain items on the web site (e.g. tax exemption certificates)
  • On-line org chart capability for major College divisions – access might be issue although no sure why; even with 15 years employment and exposure to most of the College areas, with recent changes, growth, etc I find locating the go-to person difficult; such capability should be easily editable by designated area/department staff. Similar structure for Faculty.
  • Intuitive ease of navigation coupled with robust search capability on categories & keywords
  • Well segregated info for College employees which is not relevant or is confidential relative to other constituencies. As part of a web redesign, all areas of the College should have to create a certain minimum presence on the site, fulfilling parameters established by the redesign committees.
  • Ideally, links to peer groups / departments at our peer benchmark institutions – this could be postable by Midd employees with clearance, probably managerial level but could be broader.
  • Move MiddPoints to the Web and expand its scope………..this could be the forum for idea interchange and staff / faculty / student sharing of experiences / interests / memberships / life in our multi-community ‘region’.
  • Move College Magazine to the website in abbreviated form?
  • Improve functionality of e-mail if possible: example – address an e-mail ad hoc to a large distribution group and then be able to save those addressees for later reuse without having to first define the group within the “contacts” lists and then extract that laboriously created group for e-mails

Health & Safety

  • Video on our web page.  E.g. “Every Minute Counts”
  • Ability to edit my training and policies/procedures on the web page and have its availability more user friendly.

Retail Operations

  • Would be nice to be able to either have a rss type window on the front (home) page that consolidates the many.  Campus emails and distributions that occur and not have these go to email.  Doing so would also create some cross over between Faculty/Staff/Students.  I know of much information that the students get which is applicable to staff and the other way around however the information is not currently sent to all these constituents.
  • Currently there is access to wiki work groups however the use and training (familiarity) with this service tool is low.  Additionally, finding the links if not bookmarked can be difficult.   Perhaps a drop down page of common tools & campus electronic resources would encourage more use.
  • Also would be nice to have all blogs etc indexed.  There used to be a listing of blogs but that has gone the way of the wind.
  • Photo share would be ideal for ex. Currently one must dig and link externally to Erin Quinn’s  photo’s of sports teams when this should be more easily accessed.  Likewise if pictures of events could some how be posted along with or archived linked to the events calendar this would be cool.  Theater productions, concerts, lectures etc. would be able to be highlighted by more than a listing.
  • Currently, use of word press and the campus web pages really does not allow for easy tracking of hits and use.  I find I get more information out of the Youtube statistics than I can on my more official Middlebury sites.
  • Additionally if we could adopt some pages that allow for discussion board type of conversations.  Professors currently do so for classes but access to such for information/discussions/creative development is limited to creating a blog which may or may not achieve its purpose.  This could perhaps be individualized similar to a face book wall or could be open forums similar to a craigslist or the dreaded Midd confessional.  I realize concern for abuse might exist so some discussion around this may need to occur.  However from a work load and communications point it would be more efficient for people who work off shifts/days.  Additionally, it may reduce turnaround time on projects as the communications avoid multiple emails – reply alls – forwards and of course trying to find time for a sit down meeting.
  • You can currently use an LL Bean order catalogue on line as though you have a paper copy on screen in front of you.  Might make sense to reduce the number of print magazines (Also, Middlebury, etc.) by putting these in such a format. .

Snow Bowl

  • Create a user friendly site that is a esthetically appealing and easy to navigate for the general public.
  • Create a more commercial look to the Snow Bowl website.  The Snow Bowl   is competing with areas such as Dartmouth Skiway  www.dartmouthskiway.com
  • Snow news, (daily conditions report) updated automatically on the Home page with links to snow school and rental shop.
  • Place Middlebury College Banner across the top of page and allow the Snow Bowl free area for graphic design below the banner.  A creative look with colors, pictures and possible paid advertising.
  • Ability to announce calendar of events.  (spongecell.com) is one idea.
  • Develop Face Book (in progress), link to snow news and link to Home page.
  • Ability to track our statistics: an essential marketing tool to determine where our guests are coming from.
  • Website visibility within the search engines. i.e.  A family from Boston that would like to ski in the Mid Vermont area should be able to type in mid Vermont skiing and the Snow Bowl would rank high on Google.
  • Increase S/B visibility on College website.
  • Staff directory with pictures & contact information
  • Customer feed back ; blog
  • Ability to have video on our new website

RIKERT SKI TOURING CENTER

  • Online J-Term registration
  • Auto update daily conditions report on Home Page
  • Snow News capabilities

SKI & SNOWBOARD SHOP:

  • Ability to list product photos and prices.
  • Rate schedule.
  • Calendar of events, sales, early season specials  (spongecell.com)
  • J-Term specials that would interact with Face Book.
  • Paid advertising.
  • Allow flexibility and creativity in designing the rental page to establish competition with other rental shops i.e. Alpine Shop.
  • Include safety information, no helmet rental.
  • Easy access to update pictures and images to keep the site fresh.
  • Data management system.
  • E-Mail data base, distribution lists.
  • Sale of soft goods/retail items (online store front).

SNOW SCHOOL

  • A site that would appeal to the general public with an emphasis on family skiing.
  • Market our philosophy and mission
  • Attractive, creative site that will be on par with other Snow Schools in our area.
  • Ability to promote private lessons, Tag-along- series and Regular program series.
  • Calendar of event.
  • Develop” staff” page to present the range of talents and the uniqueness of Middlebury Snow School instructors.
  • Ability for guests to write reviews of their experience.
  • Creative text, graphics and pictures updated as often as needed
  • Text that will include keywords for optimal engine search.
  • Increase visibility on SkiVermont.com, snowcountry.com
  • Data management: ski and snowboard rosters created from online registration information.
  • E-mail data base.
  • Ability to track our statistics, important marketing tool to determine where our guests are coming from.

Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE)

Stakeholder: Peggy Burns

Website: http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/tools/ace

Redo Contact: Ryan Kellett

ACE is the most important resource on campus faculty interested in community-connected teaching, learning, and research-and for students who are interested in volunteering, social justice issues, activism and advocacy, citizenship, and international service opportunities.  ACE should be a portal for all things service-whether curricular, co-curricular, or extra-curricular.  In the current economic climate and as health and human services statewide budget cuts take effect, community needs change regularly-and because this is an active campus in terms of service, it is important that the site is perceived as dynamic and up to date/accurate.

Specifically and generally, what do you want from a new site? (as an individual and as an office)

-To have a prominent place on the overall Middlebury College site to promote current and future community-connected teaching, learning, and research opportunities to faculty.

-To have a prominent place on the overall Middlebury College site so that students (current and prospective) as well as faculty and staff interested in community service opportunities and social justice issues can find ACE easily.

-To promote immediate community service needs in a prominent way.

-To be able to promote specific opportunities (internships, conferences, on-campus events) to students.

-To have a number of different “Channels” (like we do now) to divide up the different portions of our site, e.g. Community Service, Anti-Poverty Initiatives, etc.

-ACE has so many pieces-we hope to find a coherent navigational “theme” that brings it all together.

What will help your office get things done more efficiently? How can a new website help your workflow?

-Easier and more flexible content creation, editing, photo/graphic use.

-Better forms (for nominations, community service sign-ups, etc.).

-Better way to archive/view old pages and photographs.

What type of interactivity would you use? What can help your office communicate more effectively?

-A calendar feed that we have on our website with ACE-related events that also automatically feeds into a larger campus-wide site-and have a way for RSVP to come to us plus have the event added to respondent’s Outlook calendar.  Also-a way to promote “outside” events as well via the calendar (e.g., an environmental rally in Burlington).

-A section that promotes professional development opportunities for faculty.

-An interactive calendar for faculty.

-Video (interviews with students and community partners, worksites in action, etc.).

-Video of faculty teaching community-connected courses; interviews with community partners involved in community-connected teaching, learning, and research.

-Opportunity for students, faculty, staff, and community partners to sign up for ACE e-newsletter.

-A way to enable students abroad to report on their service/internships/engagement there (but more formal than a blog, reviewed by ACE first).

-Link for recording volunteer hours (as part of student portal?).

-Online payment (e.g., for MAlt trips).

-How can we get alumni involved?

Do you have examples of functionality, design, or features from other colleges or industries that you like and admire?

-Sites of ACE-related offices (civic engagement, service learning, community service, citizenship, etc.) at Bowdoin http://www.bowdoin.edu/mckeen-center/index.shtml , Tufts http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/ , Amherst https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/cce , and Swarthmore http://www.swarthmore.edu/langcenter.xml .  Also:  Georgetown, Macalaster, Princeton, Carleton, Bryn Mawr, and Colgate.

-We really want to have the capability to create “photo slideshows” on a regular basis-the type of slideshow where the picture changes automatically every few seconds. Here is an example of what we like: http://www.colgate.edu/DesktopDefault1.aspx?tabid=1870. Here is an example of what we don’t want: http://www.middlebury.edu/admissions/gallery/?galleryImage=0 because you have to click “next” each time.

If you currently create or edit pages on any of our web sites, what functionality is good? What could be improved?

-We like that we can create content (e.g., a new News and Events story) and add it immediately to the website without going through a lengthy or bureaucratic approval process.

-We would like it if there were a better system for the News and Events Feed archives… right now they just run down the right-sidebar in a long column.

-We would like ACE to be able to use both the left and right sidebars (if the new system has both sidebars). Right now we can only use our right side-bar although some offices use both sides.

-Web stats!  We need information on who visits the ACE page-and which section(s) are most visited.

-Less “homemade” looking-e.g., it’s so obvious when the home page looks great, but other pages look just cobbled together (not arguing for total conformity, just a conformity in overall graphic appeal).  More opportunity/options for choosing design emphasis (heads, etc.).

-More seamless and clarifying links to collaborating departments (e.g., CCAL).

-Better search is critical.

Art Department and Slide Museum

Dana Barrow, Visual Resources Assistant (443-5546)

I’m working with Monica McCabe on the art history and studio art sites:

Monica McCabe, Academic Coordinator, History of Art/Studio Art (443-5234)

Websites I’m re-doing:

  • History of Art and Architecture department website
  • Studio Art department website
  • Visual Resources website

What we’d like to do:

  • Create a new graphic design that mixes art images and short blocks of text
  • Generate new content focused on the people and facilities in the art departments (example: faculty and student profiles), as well as informational content (example: courses and requirements, downloadable forms)
  • Create clear, new information architecture to organize our new content
  • Add photo galleries, video/audio clips, and social networking tools

Areas where I know I need help:

  • Creating video (example: short faculty and student interviews, images of student work, panoramic images of studio spaces)
  • Conceptualizing dynamic (i.e. effective, not necessarily flashy) was to present photo galleries
  • Conceptualizing  dynamic navigation

Ideas from Shel Sax that we’d like to follow up on:

  • A proposal for a winter term class for video making next January (2010) so we can create high quality video clips
  • Creating a space on our site where students (HARC and SA) can create portfolios.  (The model is teacher education.)  This might be a good place to use social networking tools.
  • Fostering some kind of convergence with Segue (examples: portal with access to online exams, course websites, and student portfolios)

General list of things we’d like to do/have (in no particular order):

Information about people in the department

  • Short profiles of faculty, visiting architects, students, and alumni (I will create list of people.)  Models are “My Midd Experience” and the short format of the bios in theater programs with accompanying photos.  Could involve short questions for faculty such as, What is your most recent accomplishment?
  • An online magazine for a more in-depth look at who is studying abroad, faculty research and projects, student projects, etc.  Model might be International Studies magazine (http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ump/majors/is/)
  • A feature where HARC faculty talk briefly about their favorite works in college art museum
  • Place where we can link to external info about faculty and students (example: College alumni magazine will be doing a feature on John Hunisak and we would like to link to this

Images

  • Images of our studio spaces (studio art and also architectural studies)
  • Photo galleries of student work
  • Photo galleries of faculty art work

Information

  • Info on courses and requirements (SA + HARC)
  • Info on planning your major, including study abroad (HARC – link this to student portfolios)
  • Downloadable forms (HARC – or make this part of student portfolios)
  • Put our department calendar online (HARC – maybe)
  • Special page on architecture and the environment (HARC)
  • Page about student work exhibitions (SA)
  • How-to info on VR site (could be in form of blog or wiki)

Technical Stuff

  • Support for Flash (studio art would like their site to be animated in some way, HARC doesn’t require this)
  • Ability for VR staff, academic coordinator, faculty, and students to add materials to various portions of the site
  • Ability to integrate images into site design (e.g. images of faculty and student art, images from museum collection)
  • A way to create student portfolios online (maybe use Segue)

Inspiring website we like:

  • Some of the pages on the Rhode Island School of Design website (http://www.risd.edu/undergraduate)
  • What we like about it: clear architecture, video, photo galleries, integration of art images into the design

History of Art and Architecture

Courses + Requirements

Faculty office hours

Students and alumni

Visiting the department

Resources (artstor, VR collection, museum)

Photos

Contact

Studio Art

Courses + Requirements

Faculty + Office Hours

News

Facilities

Study Abroad

Student Gallery

Visiting Artist Program

Contact

Sculpture in the form of a chair (photos)

Visual Resources Collection

Note: Made in CMS but links to pages made in another program

Collection Holdings

Stats on our facility and others’ facilities

Middlebury College Museum of Art

Stakeholder: Doug Perkins
Current: http://museum.middlebury.edu/
WebRedo Contact: Mike Roy

General: The Middlebury College Museum of Art is an AAM-accredited museum serving the students, faculty, and staff of Middlebury College as well as local and regional residents of and visitors to Addison County and the Champlain Valley. The museum preserves and displays the college’s permanent collection and offers 5-7 traveling loan exhibits each year to as many as 18,000-20,000 visitors. We serve as a visual resource for a broad spectrum of courses across the college’s curriculum, most notably the departments of History of Art and Architecture and Studio Art, though in any given year we are likely to work with courses in religion, languages, music, philosophy, anthropology, American studies, classical studies, English and American literature, environmental studies, theater, and teacher education. In addition, we welcome nearly 1,000 local K-12 school students to the museum each year through the Museum Assistants Program, a volunteer docent program that offers Middlebury College students a chance to learn about the museum and to lead tours. The museum also oversees and maintains a collection of 20 works of public art displayed around the Middlebury campus, and the museum director chairs the Committee on Art in Public Places.

Requirements:

Needs
* flexibility with respect to aesthetics and typography
* have a portion of the museum home page that shows the next several upcoming museum events
* ability to create email lists to allow patrons to subscribe to relevant lists
* offer RSS feeds for museum press release pages
* maintain the majority of the current site’s look
* participate in brand mapping exercises and discussions related to the college’s brand and sub brands
* online credit card membership form
* e-commerce capability for museum bookstore directly through museum site
* flash banners
* rotating home page image with a click through
* ability to allow people to control font size easily (for accessibility/readability) with one click
* alt text balloons that follow the cursor so that image captions are noticeable (e.g.
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=fr_FR

* online forms for teacher workshop and school group registration

* video-taped lectures for podcasts and vodcasts linked to exhibits (e.g. Art in Public Places iPod tour)

* ability to link to press published electronically on the campus newspaper site as well as other news sites (Addison Independent, BFP, Seven Days, e.g.) and maybe have those stories pulled into a sidebar

* ability to zoom in on images as well as 360 degree image rotation

* online searchable database of the museum collection that is linked to the library’s online catalogue search function so that when students search for books or other media related to objects in the museum collection they will be alerted that the museum holds works that are relevant to their subject

Wants
* be involved in focus groups and usability as design process begins
* create a ‘museum module’ that users could choose to put on their customizable middlebury.edu home page that would allow pushing of info about exhibits, events, and other museum news to users’ customizable home page
* liquid layout, or at least a wider fixed width (950 pixels)
* enable comments on exhibit pages to allow visitors to leave their thoughts about exhibits and related events
* offer virtual audio and video tours either streaming through the site or for download
* allow museum Friends to RSVP on-line for members-only events
* distribute 8.5×11 .pdfs of posters (for printing and distributing at schools, etc.)
* high-quality videos of classroom discussions about art
* tagging
* facebook site (fans of the museum) to reach people through facebook
* ability to create online versions of exhibits with unique appearance (i.e. NOT within existing templates)
* updated design treatment for the Committee on Art in Public Places (CAPP) website that creates a visual link between CAPP and the museum

Nice-to-Haves

* allow students to create their own online exhibits from items in the museum collection (e.g. like what the pachyderm project might allow)