As I mentioned, I’m on Middlebury’s Internet Strategy Task Force. So what do you think Middlebury should do differently in its “web presence”? How do you use our current site, and what could we do differently that you’d find useful (either as a current student, future alum, or as a prospective student in your part imagination)? Feel free to brainstorm wildly, gripe profusely, or vent your spleen about Middlebury online – I’ll pass along comments anonymously (unless you have a great idea, in which case you’ll get full credit).
7 thoughts on “What should Midd do with the Internets?”
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I’ll think more about this when I have more time, but my initial reaction is that wiki’s could be a great resource in many different disciplines. Professor Mittell linked to a wiki done by a Pomono philosophy class (I think) in the beginning of the semester so there are examples of this happening and working. (Our class will also be an example of this later in the semester).
Overall, I think the structure of wiki’s are great for discussion and compiling knowledge.
I think Midd needs to deal with the internet from both an internal and external prospective.
Internal:
1. There is absolutely no excuse for not having full-strength, uninterrupted wireless connectivity throughout the campus, classroom buildings and dorms. I know granite and marble isn’t WiFi friendly, but this tech has been around for years. I’ve spoken to fellow students from abroad (read: countries we either have invaded or threatened to invade) who say schools back home have had such WiFi connectivity for years.
2. BannerWeb Bottlenecks. There is nothing more frustrating than waking up at 7am and Bannerweb locks you out for 15-20 mins immediately afterward. I know the sudden influx of traffic isn’t a server’s best friend, but come on…there aren’t more than 500 people in a class. In terms of network activity, that’s not a heck of a lot…lets buy a few more servers or a better storage medium to handle this…50 grand a year should allow you to sign up for classes without the need for heavy prayer.
External:
Looking around at other college’s in our peer group, the Middlebury website is severely lacking. It needs to be completely reorganized and reindexed. I recall a few weeks into my freshman year I couldn’t remember the honor code pledge and I could not find it on the site at all, both through directories and the joke of system they claim is a search function. Before I even arrived, I wanted to find out what our mascot is, and I eventually did find out that we are the Panthers, but it took about 10 minutes of searching and browsing.
1. Prospective Student\Student Information access. I concur with George that Wikis could be a good way to get information out there. MiddKidd.com serves as a good respository for campus information, but there needs to be something on the Midd site that helps prospective students and new students learn about the college–be it the honor code, commons, mail system, networking, locations of events etc. A Wiki means it will come from a student prospective rather than an adult trying to figure out what a student needs. On top of the Wiki, there needs to be much stronger multimedia on the site. Quicktime VRs of major spaces, video and the like would do well to give a sense of the physical plant.
2. Flash. Let’s face it, on top of it being hard to find information on the site, its really boring. A flash interface engineered interface might provide greater linkage between sections of the site. The better the linkage, the easier and more intuitive it is to navigate. I think the ultimate goal of the site is to be a hub for students, but right now it feels more like the D.C. Beltway–sometimes you have to use it, but you want to get off as soon as you can. There are certainly some services I take advantage of–the directory, the online menus, Midcat and occasionally webmail–but I go directly to those, bypassing the main site as much as possible.
Those are my main issues I think…
EDIT:
I just wanted to concur with the comments on GO, I meant to include it but forgot. I use it all the time, but I’m not sure how widespread its use is. Regarding a new (possibly flash) interface, it needs to serve a purpose and not just be flashy (oh the puns). A good watermark for this is the iPhone interface. It’s slick little animations are cool looking, but really do help cement relationships between menus and screens–and provide a unified\intuitive interface. As someone living\crying with dial-up back home, I concur with Jessie about the need for a low-bandwidth\ancient browser friendly version, but that sort of thing has been around for a while and each day that passes makes it less of a necessity. I also concur with Jessie’s comment about the Midd Experience schtick. I know the college wants to present that type of picture, but it read false to me as a prospy. Going back to my MiddWiki comment, I think a lot of the ideas Brian has could be really nicely realized in wiki form.
One last thing: I’m interested to hear what my comrades in arms think, but whenever I see an organization trying to act like clientele it serves–like say…the administration of an academic institution creating media that tries to look student created–it makes me angry. I’m trying to think of concrete examples of this…but I think the college can run into dangerous waters if it tries to replicate services students use elsewhere online on its own webpage. I’m thinking a Midd YouTube, or its own social networking site–not that college is necessarily pursuing these ends, but it shouldn’t try to be something its not. I’m not articulating this well.
I really agree with what Ross had to say about BannerWeb and search ability of Middlebury.
On a different note, there are some basic functions of the middlebury that I don’t think many people realize (at least I didn’t until someone showed me) that would be useful to have somewhere on the website. If you could add a “helpful hints” section and add tidbits that would be really useful. I’m thinking of things like typing “webmail” or “eres” directly into the address bar on any campus browser will bring up those pages. No more searching for eres through the library’s menu, just type in “eres” and it pops up. I wish someone told me that as a freshman. Also, hitting “0” on any campus phone will get the operator, allowing you to ask for a connection to any number on campus. That saves so much time since it’s very hard to search for campus numbers through the website.
Also, i’m not sure how complicated this would be, but allowing us to search in the directory so that names pop up AS we type so we don’t have to spell everything correctly. i’ve done a million searches for friends and turn up nothing ’cause i can’t spell, but having one of those “refining names lists” as you type would be really cool.
I’m sure I’ll think of more.
While, Midd’s web site is quite 1.0 I am not certain that it needs any more functionality. Web sites were the first places that I visited on my college search. Midd needs to insure that the site is representative of the institution’s Mission and not the banter surrounding it. One nice thing about our network is GO. I use it at least once a day.
That being said, banner is crap. The school has been dumping millions of dollars into it for years. Midd should consider a new system with the same functionality but two or three 0’s chopped-off of the price tag.
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Even though we just experienced the wonders of flash and its delightful dynamic capabilities, be VERY VERY leery of adding it as a part of the Midd site. We barely run javascript on the site for a scientific society at home because it needs to be accessible for people around the globe, and some of our favorite scientists who every year submit a paper about Caspian Horses simply wouldn’t be able to use a website that was flash-based. In our effort to be more global, we have to understand the technologies that are not merely available but functional for the people with whom we hope to engage.
MAKE SEARCH WORK. There are gobs of information available on the site, but it’s next to impossible to find because the structure of that information is illogical at best (and not, I might add, cross-referenced to cater to different logic patterns) and the search barely works. It hunts through intradepartmental PDFs before it goes to the Public Safety page, which is, I might add, where information about summer storage in Fletcher Barn is.
Either commit to the go/ function or drop it. I use it all the time because I send out everyone’s favorite weekly email from MCAB, so I regularly type “go/obo” to check ticket prices and availability for events on campus. A Midd-oriented Firefox add-on might not be bad. Figure out what we need and put it right in our browsers.
Give prospies a window to real people. “My Midd Experience” does not cut it. They are intimidating. Hell, they’re intimidating to current students. I would have been more willing to ask questions about schools if I could have fired off an email form to a waiting pool of current students and waited for one to send me a response.
Let Midd have a sense of humor on its homepage. Try to come to some kind of image-borne resolution between our excellent, long-standing reputation as an institution of higher education and our “fun and nurturing atmosphere” (only, as I said, with a sense of humor).
The one thing I do like is the visual continuity of the site. Keep that up. Seems like every page at CC‘s site has a slightly different layout… and the home page is difficult to navigate back to. The giant MIDDLEBURY helps our site users out.
As a normal student, I use the site to check out dining menus, events/academic calendars, course listings, departmental requirements, eReserves, and exam schedules. Every once in a while I go to facilities or Brainerd’s page, like when there is an ant colony living in my bed.
The terrible search engine has been bugging me for years. I feel like an improved search would solve many of the site’s organization problems, since the search link is the first place most people (who aren’t actual faculty, staff, or students) would tend to go to look for information.
In terms of appearance, I actually don’t think there’s any need to include flash or anything uber-fancy. Yes, it would allow for greater interactivity and all those things that flash is good for, but I agree with Jessie that the site should be easily accessible and readable first and foremost.
I do think that there needs to be much better organization in terms of actual information current students need. As an example, when and where Dolci gives out its tickets (or even simpler, what Dolci is). Don’t even try to search for this information. Even when I do find something remotely useful (it says “tickets must be picked up in advance on Thursday nights outside the Grille”), it’s missing exactly the piece of information I need. This is less an organization issue than it is simple mindfulness…someone needs to go over the site in its entirety and make sure that all information there is correct, complete, and up-to-date. The History department’s last posted Senior Thesis abstract is from 2003!