Stakeholder Contact: Tracy Himmel-Isham and Stephen Kiel

Website: http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/cso/default.htm

WebRedo Contact: MS Costanza-Robinson

It is important to understand CSO’s constituent base.  It’s also important to be aware of the different softwares with which CSO and its constituent base interface on a regular basis from our website.

Career Services Website Target Audiences:  How They Interface w/Technology:

Students

• • Very technologically-savvy; use guides and resources for interviewing, resumes, etc.); access audio and video of CSO workshops and events; log into MOJO and develop their ‘profile’ to allow us to send targeted emails for calendar events, internships and jobs; login to online resources for password protected databases; login to MiddNet for alumni volunteer networking database.

Employers

• • Often HR departments that use online resources for resumes; login to MOJO to set up an employer account to post jobs, internships and develop an employer profile.

Alumni

• • Generally tech-savvy; use our web toolkits and resources; login to online resources for password protected databases; login to MiddNet for alumni volunteer networking database.

Parents

• • Moderately tech-savvy; just discovering cloud-computing and social networking; can view archives of our 2 newsletters; review our 4-year Road Map of career development programs; research CSO facility and programs through our web pages.

Faculty

• • Generally tech-savvy; can use MiddNet to search for alumni practitioners in different industries to contact; research major-related events and resources.

Outside Software that CSO & Constituents Use:

CSM – (Career Services Manager – a.k.a. “MOJO”), a business software product of Symplicity which allows CSO to manage student job applications, uploaded documents (resumes, cover letters, transcripts), employer opportunities and interviewing schedules (ability to make and manage complex appointments), calendars of events/deadlines, and staff marketing emails and deadlines. Below is a simple visual of the architecture of Symplicity’s software.¹

• Current CSM issues: The CSM is highly manual, and does not interface with Banner.  Additionally, marketing for opportunities is sent through Outlook with address-lists generated in the CSM. A second example: it would be nice to be able to output the events listed in the CSM into the portal-pages of the new Middlebury site.

MiddNet – a PCI product, and subset of Panthernet (the Alumni online community), that connects current students and alumni.  There are almost 10,000 volunteer alumni that have placed themselves on the site.  It interfaces with Banner and is managed by Tim Etchells.  Middlebury is currently migrating MiddNet and Panthernet to software vendor Harris.

Website Requirements of Career Services:

General

• Middlebury new homepage needs to be aesthetically pleasing. For instance Gettysburg College homepage worked well with our staff members who reviewed it as opposed to Oberlin’s site which appeared “to have too many colors, wasn’t focused enough and was distracting.” A desirable feature on the Gettysburg site was the login/profile feature.
• Greater aesthetic control/options with whatever CMS we will be using; font size, typeface, color, format, etc.
• Ability to embed high-quality media streams.
• Greater administrative functionality:  user, admin, error, and change logs; user/groups permissions management; ability to edit in sourcecode within the css bounds of the CMS, ability to alter channel names, etc.

Our LIKES (current site)

• The move to a CMS to make web editing easier for standard moderators.

Our DISLIKES (current site)

• Lack of disclosure of available technologies in a well-maintained and easy-to-access medium:  LIS/communications needs to increase campus’s awareness of their services and technologies.
• General navigation: CSO has recently thoroughly re-done our entire subsite, and is poised to implement our content with a new navigation.
• General aesthetic limitations: font, bullet-style, etc.
• Our CSM software (“MOJO”) does not integrate into the current site (see examples above, and the issue of branding below)
• The MSCMS is occasionally buggy, illogical, and hard to work with.

Our HOPE & DREAMS

• Consider how students want their information delivered: we’ve been discussing pushing content to students vs. students pulling content either from CSO or other sites (Linked In, Facebook). If we can use the web to do work for us, we can save time and increase productivity elsewhere.
• Widgets, tagging, wikis, blogs that seamlessly integrate into the CSO website so you don’t “jump” from the main Middlebury site to a CSO non branded site. (CSO’s media archive). ²
• Higher branding of CSO homepage to display features such as alumni spotlight (the type of thing used on the main homepage and athletics homepage) on careers and student internship experiences.
• Permissions/bureaucratic burdens to accessing technology/help will be reduced. It seems that alumni spotlight (see preceding bullet) template is not widely available or at least folks are not aware of where/how to get it. CSO has recently acquired access to this template.
• The ability to integrate our password protected software: MOJO (Symplicity) and MiddNet (PCI) into a seamless Middlebury website.
• Development of a searchable Immediate Jobs Page that would allow alumni to post opportunities from other websites onto Middlebury’s CSO site.
• Ability to make use of college media staff and facilities for presenting our workshops, information sessions, and Career Conversations on our website – we can provide the content, but need staff to help us deliver it through the web. Currently CSO uploads 800mb files to Youtube, 100 mb at a time, requiring a labor-intensive process which results in non-high-quality video streams. Rohatyn digital collections produces great embedded video – how do we get that?
• To have our new CSO site talk to our CSM (“MOJO”) to display our events, new internships and jobs in a new portal type ‘MyMidd’ (like Gettysburg) that could pull in our Hot Internships and jobs as they were posted to MOJO/LACN thru Symplicity. Currently, events are scheduled/posted in MOJO, we have to manually get them posted on Events@Midd.
• More media for distance learning/delivery.

Our FEARS

• Won’t happen as scheduled (no specific urgency, just a big need)
• Won’t work as promised
• Will quickly be out of date compared to the technologies that the students interact with on a regular basis
• The complexity of so many people involved and slowdowns occurring with implementation
• Complexity of wanting branding (i.e., CSO wants their site to feel more like the Midd homepage with a fancier template and higher-tech features available) but also wants flexibility to make their own decisions. An array of templates or some kind of buffet-style means of mixing and matching template pieces might satisfy these needs.

CSO is interested in participating in focus groups.