Tag Archives: rss

Athletics

Leave a reply

Form of contact: Meeting with Coaches, AD, and Stakeholder

Stakeholder: Brad Nadeau

WebRedo Contact: Jamie Northrup

Website: http://www.middlebury.edu/athletics

Brief: The Athletics Department is interested in a few key areas- a more interactive site overall with photos, video, and interaction, the ability to customize individual team pages, and a better recruiting interface.

Athletics Requirements:

  • Upload/display/show/imbed video
  • Mobile score updates through current scoreboard interface designed by web services
  • Easy blogging for coaches
  • Easily upload audio sound/interviews to be played
  • Online store through bookstore to sell athletic merchandise
  • Flexibility for displaying different fonts/colors/sizes of text etc…
  • Ability for podcasts/RSS feeds
  • Way to display photos for potential purchase, thumbnails, full-size etc. aka-photo store
  • Top level visibility (don’t hide athletics)
  • Athletics template that can be customized with photos
  • Athletics wants to design/control IA for their site
  • Want mouse-over / menu display functionality
  • New recruiting functionality

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

Middlebury College Museum of Art

Leave a reply

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)

Office of Institutional Planning and Diversity (OIPD)

Leave a reply

Stakeholder: Jennifer Herrera
Website: http://www.middlebury.edu/campuslife/diversity
WebRedo Contact: Ryan Kellett / Pooja Shahani

General: OIPD has a variety of separate constituencies embedded within this larger area. International Student & Scholar Services has their own Stakeholder report. ADA (http://www.middlebury.edu/campuslife/diversity/ada/) and Institutional Research (http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/instres/) are included in this report.

Requirements:

  • Maintain support for the recently completed IPD flash site (highly branded, front-end site) (http://sandcat.middlebury.edu/comm/OIPD/)
  • Events Scheduling: IPD requests a better way to push events information for Cafecito hours and other diversity-related events to internal audiences, in particular students. This can be accomplished through a news feed (RSS). When an event changes, IPD requests an automatic event notification that alerts people to the change. IPD is willing to reduce email blasts if events feed is effective.
  • Forms: a dynamic customizable form that can be used by students to apply for co-sponsorship funding. There needs to be a better way and interface for accessing the data collected from these forms because it’s hard to understand the datafields that come back through email currently. Form should be more easily accessible by students.
  • CMS: Easier, better, and more-flexible CMS. Spellcheck within CMS?
  • Website font too small. Easier way to increase font size.
  • Sharing: IPD requests ability to share relavent articles from around the web with visitors of the site.
  • ADA Office:
    • The webpage must be meaningfully accessible e.g. work with screen readers and have tags that truly describe photos and the like.
    • Some people have had trouble “noticing” the page links to the left of my current site… they actually think that the only information for the ADA Office is on the first page that comes up. Can we make the links more obvious? Perhaps list the links on the actual page instead of to the right or left of it?
    • The ADA Policy is fairly long so it is helpful to be able to click on a section link and be directed to that section… that is currently the set-up and I’d like to make sure it stays that way.
  • Institutional Research: As you might expect, we do a lot of reporting on our website-it is a place where external folks, such as colleagues at our peer schools, find details they need about Middlebury and where our staff and faculty can find info they may need in their work. At a basic level, we need the site to have a place for all the items there currently, such as Factbooks, CDSs, National Surveys, etc. We need a place for posting just things for internal viewing (also similar to what we have now). My hope is that the IR site would continue to be an easily accessible, clear place to find data and reports that external and internal “customers” need.

    In terms of wishes, one enhancement to the internal part of the site may be dedicated to Self-Study/Re-accreditation work (depending on how it is decided to set things up for this campus-wide work). Other enhancements may be to post or link to some of the items Jenn Nuceder works on, for example with regard to MIIS reports.

Student Government Association (SGA)

Leave a reply

Stakeholder Contact: Bobby Joe Smith ’09
Website: http://middsga.wordpress.com/ and http://www.middlebury.edu/about/handbook/governance/Student_Government_Association_(SGA).htm
WebRedo Contact: Ryan Kellett and Pooja Shahani

Requirements:

  • SGA Communication: there is a need to communicate with the student body on a regular basis. Currently, the SGA communicates via email with weekly all-student updates.
  • Advertisements/Alerts: student organizations have a need to advertise events beyond just putting the event on a web calendar. The SGA requests ways to push multimedia advertisements to students in a variety of ways both online and possibly offline.
  • Student Initiative: the new website should allow room for students to add their own content and welcome new student-created features.
  • Student Organizations: these organizations have both internal communication among members but also want to recruit new members/students to the club. Student orgs need the tools to easily build their own website and share information/documents.
  • Constitution Committee: need to display 120+ text-based constitutions. Constitutions need to be easily updated with new information and officer lists. (preferably CMS based — so outsiders can find info).
  • Feedback: SGA often needs to collect feedback from students. Forms or surveys work. Easy access to that information is important.
  • Rideboard, craigslist-selling space, textbook exchange