Tag Archives: portal

Business Services

Leave a reply

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.

Academic Affairs

Leave a reply

General:

  • Many in our office use the AA website for disseminating forms, and providing general information, but we fear that many on campus are not aware of what is there
  • Many use Banner and/or webmail but these are not easy to get to without several clicks.
  • We also use the schedule of courses to see when faculty are teaching, and reference the College Handbook online quite a bit
  • We also use the scheduler on RS25, however it is not the “complete” campus schedule as several offices do not use it to list their events.  We generally like the ability to request space from the site itself.
  • Although our experience has been less than positive with CMS, one thing that it does is allow you to set a date for a page to expire, which is very helpful
  • the college’s search engine is not ideal as it is difficult to find pages
  • a related issue is the length of pages, esp. in the handbook.  It’s difficult to point someone to a particular place when it may be half-way down the page, or someplace in the page that may be difficult to direct someone to.

Goals:

  • having more freedom to connect to pages outside of our area would be great, such as links to faculty pages or more connectivity to registrar or advising info
  • ability to disseminate information more easily (perhaps by avoiding email), such as upcoming talks, lectures, meetings, or reminders of deadlines, etc.
  • it would be ideal to know when faculty are teaching, which we do now by hunting through class schedules.  I like Amherst’s schedule tool, where you can add your own
  • It would be nice to have a collection of faculty accomplishments available on the AA website.  Right now we send out an email with that info on a semi-regular basis
  • Allowing folks to tailor their page to select their own “widgets” sounds like a good thing
  • How about links to local sites, like weather, CNN, the Chronicle, etc?
  • Please make sure we leave our address on the front page.  This is a real issue for me when looking at other school’s websites, which I do frequently
  • Could we add a virtual campus tour?
  • Would like to have a list of grants that have been approved so faculty can check on the status of their request when they log in
  • We would like an area for all relevant forms separate from informational sections.
  • it would be helpful if links within a site were listed alphabetically
  • AA should have a section that provides a “division of duties” chart for all staff in the office that can be referenced by others
  • Some sections of the site seem to be a “dumping area” for lots of stuff that makes it difficult to cull through. For example, a separate section for course proposal forms, student independent project proposals and guidelines
  • improve the search feature

College Advancement

Leave a reply

Stakeholder: Mike Schoenfeld

Liaisons: Maggie Paine and Joe Antonioli

Stakeholders interviewed: two in-depth discussions were held with representatives from all CA departments. In addition, each department provided written feedback on requirements.

Overview

College Advancement requirements focus on:

  • integration of the many sites it relies on;
  • personalized pages;
  • improvements to online giving and registration;
  • improved data collection;
  • repurposing of content/ability to pull content (video, stories, slideshows, blogs, etc.) into their department web pages,
  • tracking and analysis of online communications;
  • sharing of documents and information within work groups;
  • creation of a microphilanthropy site.

Integration of all CA-related sites

College Advancement needs the various sites that cater to alumni, parents, and friends to be seamlessly integrated and easy to access. Currently, they are not easy to find, it is difficult to move from one to another, and each one has a different look and feel.

These sites are: College Advancement (ie. Give to Middlebury) and Alumni and Parent Programs pages on the cms, Middlebury Initiative, microphilanthropy site (to be developed), online giving form, PantherNet (Harris Connect online community; includes MiddNet career network), Middlebury Online, Agents in Action and Initiative Volunteer Leadership site (volunteer management tools), Google APP events calendar, and University Channel, as well as Facebook pages, LinkedIn site, YouTube, and other social networking tools. In addition, there are affinity group pages developed by alumni, students, or faculty that need to be incorporated into or easily accessible from the CA site. (Examples include the D8 Web site and Digital Bridges site). (Please see appendix for complete list of non-CMS pages that College Advancement relies on.)

PantherNet-the Harris Connect online community-is currently being developed and will launch in May. Alumni and Parent Programs will use PantherNet for many services, and it’s critical that these services are integrated with the Middlebury site. The services include:

  • Event registration tied to a searchable calendar of events
  • Broadcast e-mail tool with tracking capabilities
  • Constituent directory with search tool and easy update process
  • Classifieds
  • Career networking tools including interface with LinkedIn and MiddNet, job postings, and online resources

Harris also has the option for alumni to create personalized pages; however, CA is interested in being part of the overall Middlebury customization project. (See below.)

Personalized/Customizable Pages

College Advancement needs to have customizable pages for its alumni, parents, and volunteers. In addition to providing options for alumni to customize their own pages, CA would like to be able to pull specific content into alumni pages, perhaps through a combination of previews of blogs, e-mails, news feeds, videos, etc., and links.

Some of the content could be determined by an individual’s Banner record. For example, if an alumnus was celebrating a reunion, information specific to that reunion would automatically be pulled into his page. Similarly, if an alumna were a class agent, Initiative leadership volunteer, or Cane Society representative, specific links and tools would be included on her page. Donors could see their giving history.

Other content that might be pulled into a person’s page includes events, important college news, such as a communication from the president, notification that the latest donor honor roll was online, Initiative updates, Annual Fund progress reports (with overall and class participation), and stories relating to a person’s interests as shown in Banner (athletics, D8, etc.).

College Advancement would like to see customized pages/portals for volunteers and stewardship reports for individuals accessible after log in.

There is interest in having one log-on that would provide people with access to Middlebury personal pages, donor honor roll, online community, and their pages on multiple social networks. (particularly for younger alumni). At the least, once logged into any Middlebury site, there would be no need for log in to another Middlebury site.

In addition, CA would like to see personalized Web pages for staff members, with features such as calendar, project team discussion groups, and rss feeds.

Online Giving and Registration

Online giving and registration need to be more fully automated and connected to Banner and the Harris online community. Online giving also needs to be easier for donors to use and to provide more giving options.

Currently, TouchNet does not interface with Banner. Instead, each gift and registration requires a journal entry to be done. Then gift processing and alumni staff members enter gifts and registration information manually into each person’s Banner record. Recording registration information on the web site is also a manual process.

College Advancement would like to see the following improvements to these systems:

  • Enable Touchnet to interface with the logic that is already written into Banner Self Service.
  • Automatic processing and entry of registrations and gifts into Banner with a screen that allows each gift and registration to be reviewed by a staff member, then accepted. This would also include automatic entry into Banner of updated personal information that is generated when people register for an event or make a gift; again, this data would need to be reviewed before being fed into Banner.
  • Event registration forms that require people to include their e-mail addresses and other personal information.
  • Event registration forms that also allow people to make a gift and have both automatically processed (see above).
  • Registration and gift information automatically displayed on appropriate college pages. For example, when someone registers for reunion, his/her name would automatically appear in the list of who’s coming on the class reunion page; as gifts came in, the “mercury” in a thermometer tracking giving would go up.
  • Automatic processing of recurring credit card gifts or pledge payments (currently done manually and credit card information must be kept on file)
  • Once a person logs into the system (either the online giving form, online community, or personal Middlebury page), when he/she goes to make a gift the personal information we have for them in Banner is automatically displayed.
  • Elimination of need for storage of personal security information (credit card data) on College servers.

Online giving could be made easier and more effective in the following ways:

  • Enable memorial gifts and gifts in honor of others
  • Flag missing information in the online giving form as people are filling it out
  • Include a printable form for multi-year pledges as part of giving form
  • Enable automatic withdrawal from donors’ bank accounts on a monthly basis
  • Allow donors to request information about gift planning, reunion giving, etc. using the online giving form
  • Provide a feature that recognizes what someone is giving to and suggests other options (like Amazon)
  • Provide option for links to videos that demonstrate impact of giving in particular areas
  • Customized online giving forms for different areas of the College (BLSE, LS, etc.) or specific fundraising projects (Organic Garden, etc.)

Improved Data Collection

Updated information on constituents is key to being able to communicate effectively. College Advancement needs to collect e-mail addresses and other information about alumni and parents. The changes noted above, will help. They are interested in other methods of collecting this data that we might suggest.

Repurposing Content

College Advancement needs to able to pull and display content aggregated in Middlebury Online, “below the fold,” or available elsewhere on the Middlebury.edu site (campus blogs, discussion groups, news, stories, lectures, video, slideshows, The Campus, WRMC, etc.) into individual CA pages, where having such content would reinforce key messages and help advancement tell the Middlebury story to its audiences.

Tracking and analysis of online communications

College Advancement needs the ability to track and analyze its online communications. It may be that training in using Google Analytics, Lyris, and the Harris Connect broadcast e-mail tool tracking function will fulfill this need.

Sharing of documents and information within work groups

An easy, searchable system for sharing documents and information-perhaps also including as video, slideshows, photos, etc.-is needed to replace the static N drive, where advancement officers currently store and share information. This must be accessible from off-campus. Having the ability for multiple people to work on a document at once (like Google docs) would also be useful.

Microphilanthropy Web site

College Advancement is charged with developing a site that combines concepts from microfinance and social networking and that enables donors to fund specific projects that are meaningful to them and to connect with others who share their interests.

Other Needs

  • Graduate programs easily accessible via the home page.
  • Discussion groups in each of the languages we teach
  • Interactive thermometer that tracks alumni participation
  • Amazon-type feature that remembers visitors’ preferences
  • Obvious way to provide feedback or comment
  • Ease of site navigation
  • Meeting organizer that makes it easy to schedule meetings involving many people
  • Donor site accessible after log-in that includes donor honor roll, 1800 Society and True Blue Society pages, and other stewardship content.
  • Interactive map or other feature that would enable alumni and college communications to post a photo and a brief story or statement. Then each person/location would be added to the map and when you clicked on it, you would see the photo and quote. Map would also have locations of all our schools abroad and Bread Loaf sites with information on each one. An alternative way to show this would be to rotate photos/quotes on the map. MSNBC did something similar, but without the map. Roll over a particular photo of a person and you get a brief quote. Click on the full story and it delivers the story in a pop-up screen. See www.msnbc.com/id/26903309

Language Schools

Leave a reply

Form of contact: Meeting with Coordinators and Senior Staff

Stakeholder: Jamie Northrup

WebRedo Contact: Jamie Northrup

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

Requirements:

  • Embedded video
  • easy blogging tools
  • in-language functionality/ability to display other languages
  • photo galleries that students/staff can upload to
  • live-chat capabilities
  • customizable home pages
  • single sign-on (so once you log on you do not have to log on to different tools)
  • links to facebook and other social networking tools
  • distinction between on-campus/off-campus sites
  • application tracking
  • ability to upload and edit forms
  • flash features- have a map that displays where students/faculty come from

Breadloaf School of English (BLSE)

Leave a reply

Jan. 29, 2009

Attending:  Sanda Legault, Judy Jessup, Elaine Lathrop, Lexa DeCourval, Karen Browne, Susan Holcomb with Renee Brown and Shel Sax

One major complaint was the Middlebury branding, student profiles that are undergraduate focused which doesn’t work for Bread Loaf. – would like to have the ability to use BL appropriate content. Love the fact that BLSE is well-positioned on the College’s home page along with MIIS, Writers Conference, etc.

Unlike other groups on campus, BLSE has its own communication/conferencing/email program, Breadnet (First Class software) that it uses for communications, particularly during the summers when the 4 campuses are in session. During that time, many students don’t use the Middlebury College web page, since all available relevant information is accessible from Breadnet.

Types of information: very basic information is currently there but have talked about photos, something like a Facebook page that connects applicants to current students, etc.

  • overview at BLSE page – with who we are, what we do, faculty
  • information that we have is there but the CMS standards are too rigid and have prevented BLSE from changing content – so the original content was mostly straight from the catalog and that’s what’s still there – this summer, looking to have a media section where they can put podcasts – this is an idea for the reunion – also issues with permissions for a large scale podcast initiative
  • integration with Banner Web is critical, particularly for the online applications process.
  • online application is confusing to students – students from the Language Schools apply to BLSE, for example

Navigation/Search:

  • Want to make sure that the inquiry process is in place for admissions, so that online applications and forms work well from the current web page. – some students need assistance but typically because they don’t read the available online instructions
  • some things are very hard to find e.g. webcams, campus map, etc.
  • search function is not a big help but a site map would be a big help. – are there people to advise on the better way to structure the site and to do more creative and interesting things
  • people want to get to information with only a few clicks

Requested Features/Functionality

  • areas for growth including online newsletter, audio and video of presentations, plays, readings, etc.,
  • online community for alums and current students, BLTN for example
  • Single log on and customization of individual pages would be desirable
  • Unique factor about BLSE is the use of FirstClass (Breadnet) for communication and some document sharing. Otherwise, use Ocelot
  • Having a link to Breadnet would be useful
  • Forms, applications, etc. are typically Banner based or on Ocelot
  • Definitely want embedded photos, video, podcasting, etc.
  • visual map for the various campus, virtual tours of the 4 campuses
  • Want to have students submit and publish photos taken by BL’ers with some control.
  • Ability to create summer content that would be easy to turn on and turn off as the yearly cycle turns. How to communicate with students during the yearly cycle that permits the targeting of specific subsets of the BLSE community.
  • Want different types of information – some general for non-enrolled students, faculty, etc. and then have a log in for students, faculty and staff to access more individualized information.
  • Ability to ‘push’ information rather than publish information. – RSS feeds might be of use, but assumes that people use RSS feeds and it is not clear how to create such an environment
  • For example, want to let enrolled students in Vermont that theater tickets are available, but don’t want this information to go to BLSE students on other campuses.
  • want something to facilitate the publishing of images on the web, automating the optimization of the image size, etc.

Workflow – current & desired

  • Interested in having multiple editors with one or two ‘approvers’
  • would like a way to individualize the application forms for BLSE – and looking to put course registration online
  • Use pdf files, and forms that interact with Banner.
  • Note that students range in age from young to old and the older cohorts have difficulties navigating the web site and online forms – there’s lot of individualized assistance provided by the BLSE staff
  • lack of use of credit cards is an issue