Tag Archives: course management

Schools Abroad

Leave a reply

Form of contact: Meeting with Coordinators and Senior Staff

Stakeholder: Liz Ross and Jeff Cason

WebRedo Contact: Jamie Northrup

Website: http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/sa

Brief:

Requirements:

  • Easier navigation- drop downs
  • some interactive features like discussion/blog/wiki
  • a ‘discussion’ where students can post, but the postings are only viewed by administrator.
  • We currently have on-line application for non-Midd students applying to Schools Abroad.  It will be very help for advisors/faculty to be able to submit references electronically as well; currently they can just download a PDF and then send it to us.
  • Possibly create a system so that study abroad advisors at other institutions can track students’ applications to see what stage in the process they are in.
  • Being able to send emails to batches of students (Midd/NonMidd/Term Abroad would be handy, though we can access this info now with FMP, or Excel sheets for those of us who keep Banner records in Excel
  • Ability to upload and maintain forms on the www site
  • Option for text-only loading; useful for students abroad in minimal connection environments (e.g. Russia)
  • Directory – improvement would be to search the directory/website directly from the homepage rather than having to click on the link to the directory page.   Also it’s good that there is a drop-down menu for departments, but “student” would be a choice.  And now that it’s been upgraded, the results are shown below (on my screen/browser) the search screen, so you have to scroll to see the results, when really, once I’ve search, that part of the screen could go away.
  • Segue: the text formatting is terrible (it reformats however it likes and doesn’t allow you to change the formatting once on the interface).  This means that unless you’re typing everything from scratch on Segue, the formatting is screwy.  Also, the “son of segue” version, which lacks the quiz function, makes it less useful.
  • Event registration: I like the automatic reply that tells you your event has been submitted successfully, and I like the on-line calendar/room availability feature-it saves a lot of back and forth. On-line forms, such as Events Scheduling, is useful and works well.
  • Student Worker job posting: VERY easy to use-I wouldn’t change a thing, but there has got to be a way to electronically submit a student payroll authorization form.
  • KeySurvey-This seems to be working well, now that we have a departmental account and can steal from one another’s surveys.  The inability to run a report by respondent and hide the email (making them cease to be anonymous) can be problematic.
  • CMS.  I especially like the ability to “replace” old documents.  It’s recently been proven problematic when we link to a server (on-line application, for example) without the “go” url-and then the server we’ve linked to is off-line.  It’s difficult to know what he “go” addresses are and when to use them if we haven’t created them.  The other problems I have are the bulleted lists (if you remove a bulleted list, I can never get that final bullet to delete) and the multiple pastings of text (instead of inserting a new paragraph, often it will insert it twice-and you can’t always just go in and delete the second one).  Much better in this version than the past is the ability to change the size of an existing table and align pictures/wrap text. It would be nice if the Resource Manager saved resources in either alphabetical or chronological order…some type of searchable order (any order really) would be nice rather than the apparent randomization it uses now.
  • Being able to submit grades online (Blackboard has this functionality)

Art Department and Slide Museum

Leave a reply

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

Academic Departments

6 Replies

Heard from Susan Campbell, Department Chairs, Academic Coordinators
Drafted by Renée Brown and Jason Mittell

In surveying department chairs and coordinators, as well as casual discussions with many faculty, frustrations with our current web design and system run deep. Key problems mentioned include lack of design flexibility, difficulty in updating, poor navigation and organization, inability to easily embed images and media, and the static nature of information and site design. There was widespread enthusiasm for the makeover and willingness to participate in the process. Given that every academic department has different needs and specific uses, it is difficult to assess the relative importance of various features, but this document attempts to synthesize key needs and requirements as expressed across the curriculum.

Needs for Departmental Sites

We have identified a number of types of information that departments feel are important to their sites, broken into four major areas:

  • Department Overview: brief mission statement, central contact info, feed of news/events, and visual vibrancy for splash page
  • People: lists of faculty & staff with links to detailed profile pages, office hours & contact info, updates of publications/grants/achievements, alumni & student profiles
  • Curriculum: major requirements (including potential concentrations & sample sequences for more complex programs like ENVS and AMST), independent project guidelines, downloadable forms (both departmental and from the registrar), courses/schedule, links to class websites
  • Resources: departmental library guide, career info, study abroad recommendations, departmental newsletter, facilities & equipment overviews/policies, external links (research sites, grad programs, opportunities for community outreach, etc.), guide to “what can be done with a XXX major?”, feeds from external blogs, video/images of specialized facilities

Many departments indicate that they currently underuse their websites, with minimal information that is rarely updated. There was consensus that this makeover process could help show people some new ways to use the web effectively. During sessions where other websites were demoed, there were frequent “a-has” upon seeing capabilities that other schools are using, so we feel there will be enthusiasm for innovation. Some specific innovations that seemed particularly popular include dynamically generating course listings (a “modular catalog”), faculty pages feeding & linking to schedules and courses, feeds of sponsored & relevant events, and integrated links to Banner information.

We discussed the option of choosing among a group of templates, customized for both visual variety and optimized for different needs (such as more graphics/media, more text-based, etc.) – most coordinators and faculty seem to embrace this option. Coordinators wanted more flexibility with fonts and sizing of text. There was a clear desire for more graphic and media capabilities, especially within the Arts.

Some faculty embraced the idea of student and/or alumni work being profiled and displayed on the site, especially in the Arts. Potential links with the library’s thesis archive is an option worth considering.

Some departments currently publish newsletters, and many would consider publishing them to the web instead of, or in addition to, paper and mailing. Ongoing updated departmental blogs were of interest to a few departments as well.

Needs for Individual Faculty

Faculty pages were noted for being rarely updated, dry, and lacking variability or personality. Faculty were interested in being able to edit their own profile, recognizing that some faculty would be less likely to do so (although no less likely than emailing the updates to coordinators, which could still be an option). Arts faculty specifically want the ability to host images and media of their creative work.

An idea discussed with coordinators was to have a central database for faculty publications/achievements – either faculty or coordinators would enter the information about a new publication (including link to online version or Midd subscription through JSTOR, etc.), which would then feed to the faculty’s homepage, their department(s) page, a college-wide faculty achievement page (which would be useful for library acquisitions as well as PR), and into the annual report for faculty given to the Provost. Coordinators thought this would be a better option than updating individual faculty pages, and expected between 1/3 and 1/2 faculty would enter their own info, growing over time with increased technological fluency.

The idea of automatically feeding a faculty’s scheduled teaching with links to courses to their profile page (as on Amherst) was quite popular. It’s uncertain how many faculty would maintain separate pages through Segue or the community.middlebury.edu server if the core website were more flexible – one option would be to embed separately designed pages into the core departmental site.

Workflow

The current CMS restricts editing to coordinators, although some faculty have edited on the platform. A number of chairs expressed interest in editing their pages, having other faculty edit, or having student workers edit. Coordinators generally want to be involved in the editing process, both to oversee consistency and maintain their web skills, but recognize that the current workflow leads to infrequent updates and little input from faculty.

An easy-to-use editing and authoring system, especially for incorporating media and images, was seen as essential, with the ability to increase participation of faculty in the editing process. One issue expressed by some faculty was that the new system not be tied to a specific browser or platform (e.g. must be usable on Mac/PC and Firefox/IE).

Coordinators were concerned that expanded content on the department site would lead to increased workload. Sharing editing responsibilities would help. Additionally, the ability of sites to be dynamically assembled, rather than static updates, would be useful – for instance, feeding events, faculty publications, career links, library research tools, and alumni news from other offices and systems would make the site update regularly without requiring manual changes.

In imagining the workflow model that would work best for academic departments, coordinators endorsed a system where many users could be given editing ability for the department page (including faculty and student workers), but that all edits must be approved by the coordinator before publishing (via a notification system). This should increase updates from faculty on the content they know best, and allow delegation and distribution of work more effectively, without sacrificing consistency and appropriate form & use of media. Some thought it would be helpful to be able to turn the approval requirement on and off, allowing the possibility of all authorized editors to publish directly.

The idea of a student/alumni section of the site that could be updated (with approval) by students and alumni themselves was mentioned as a way to encourage participation. Another option is a simple webform for alums to send in info to feed into the site, perhaps at the college-wide level with tags to majors and field of employment.

Other Desired Features

  • Many coordinators were enthusiastic about being able to easily customize their own user profiles to make their web use more efficient – after a clear explanation, all coordinators present at the meeting said they’d definitely use this feature.
  • One consistent theme with coordinators and faculty was that as much Banner information as possible should be accessible from the website directly without using BannerWeb. Course rosters (linked from course pages, as on Amherst), student schedules, faculty schedules, lists of majors, and the like should be accessed via links rather than BannerWeb login.
  • More sophisticated use of feeds and targeted info via the web was endorsed, especially as an alternative to email-driven communication.
  • One idea would be to have lists of new library acquisitions in a certain discipline feed into the departmental site.
  • Better management of events and calendar info was mentioned, both in terms of flexible feeds by tag, department, location, medium (lecture, performance, film), and the ability to click “Add to my Calendar” to export to Outlook or other systems.
  • Some language departments mentioned the need for varying language character sets (such as Cyrillic and Greek).
  • Some arts departments want the ability for students to create their own portfolios of their work, as Teacher Ed currently does. This would ideally be embedded directly into the core department site, not externally hosted on Segue.
  • A few faculty expressed interest in having the ability for social networking, and a couple said they have used Facebook pages to coordinate with current majors and alums.
  • A few mentioned the use of wikis, but only for specific purposes (for instance, a wiki for documentation of FMMC equipment).
  • Some suggested a “majors-only” area, although there was not a clear sense of what information and material should have restricted access.
  • One coordinator suggested that departments could have a list of current majors on the site, potentially with links to student pages/profiles.
  • One coordinator suggested the possibility of online sign-up for scheduling of meetings and appointments. Another suggested the use of an online order form for equipment requests (currently used on CHEM site), which might also be expanded to request access to facilities (like MUSIC practice rooms), reserve specialized equipment (like FMMC cameras).
  • A few faculty expressed interest in having the departmental website offer the possibility for discussion and community involvement, not just a one-way flow of information. Options include blog-like updates with comments, an open “wall” to make announcements/promotions, and a department wiki open to Midd users as a workspace for engaging with the department.

Center for Teaching and Learning Resources

Leave a reply

Stakeholder: Susan Campbell and Kathy Skubowski

Website: http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/ctlr/

WebRedo Contact: Renee Brown

General:

  • We regularly use Banner, library, blog for writing tutors, servers, Outlook, and Entourage. Would like to be able to share documents, photos, video, blogs, email, RSS feeds
  • Search/navigation: lack of consolidation. Would like a way to centralize material or link from one location–even if you’re good at finding information, it shouldn’t be difficult to do.
  • There seem to be lengthy delays and lack of timely response to requests for new channels and the possibility of a bottleneck in authorizing and approving requests for new or more web content.
  • The ability to look at the Master Schedule without having to go through someone else is very valuable.
  • Our course management tool is not easy to find on the College web site.

Goals:

  • Would like to offer short questions and self-paced tests to students as part of the tutoring program but there is no easy way to do this despite the fact that other institutions have this facility. In Math, there are symbol/equation issues, but nonetheless, we should have a built in online testing capability.  Emphasized the desirability of being to work with such a tool without any intermediation by tech folks.
  • Noted the lengthy delays and lack of timely response to requests for new channels, etc.  Also mentioned the possibility of a bottleneck in authorizing and approving requests for new or more web content.
  • The possibility of integrating AccuTrack more into Banner.
  • Having a web designer help with setting up the original structure and organization would be helpful.
  • If there was tracking program that the web admins could run to see where the hits to a particular department are going, it would facilitate the organization of the site. The general sense is that students have difficulty finding information and without information about how people are navigating the CTLR site, it is difficult to know how to improve the organization of information.
  • When on a site, having drop down menus are a comfort, providing glimpses as to the result of clicking on a link and a sense of how the site is organized. Also, shows a variety of options.
  • Hamilton’s teaching/learning site (http://www.hamilton.edu/writing/index.html) is very well laid out. Was searching for oral presentation skills and had no problem logically navigating.
  • Like the idea of having a customized home page, that is optional, but would be most helpful to permit a unique home base for each user.