May 15 meeting minutes

The committee met at 11-12 today. I am really pleased that the site begins to take shape, at least structurally. A number of things to report:

1. Gary will email everyone about the blog (which you are reading), the mock-up site, etc., so that people can swing to work on these sites. The idea is that each office (e.g., DGS) will revise the section on the internal mock-up site.
   
   What to do on the mock-up site:
   
   • Revise/edit existing page(s): Once logged on, you can select a page and edit like in Word. You can paste in information, too. When you are done, click on "publish". It automatically saves all the changes.
   • Create new pages. On an existing page, select some words (which will be the name of the link), click the "link" button on the righthand tools area, and follow from there. It creates a link to a new page. Then, follow the "Back to .." link to the left of the "Publish" button, scroll down to find the page you just created -- it's blank, of course. You can start edit now.
   • Comment: there is not a comment tool, but you can simply type your comment, select the text, and change it to a bright color.
     
     
2. WRT WeST's graphical mock ups, the committee generally likes the 2-column design (sample 2), but with specific requests and suggestions. The front page should have:
   
   • Contact info clearly presented
   • Mission Statement, but short
   • A rotating profile of faculty, labs, research groups (and graduate students?)
     
   • Search box, a must
     
   
   In addition,
   
   • the current design lacks "depth" and is flat. Which is to be expected for a quick mock up, but hopefully the final version will be much more visually appealing.
   • the announcement should be visually distinct from the mission statement and other elements.
   • there was discussion about where to put Job Announcements. The should be featured in both "Events & Announcements" and the "For ..." section on the front page.
     
3. The committee spent most of the time on how to represent Graduate Studies and Research Areas. The message from both DGS's is clear -- applicants need to indicate which program (tracks, or whatever the name will be) they are applying to. Their applications will be reviewed by faculty in that program.
   
   One of the highest priorities in the Graduate section of the website is to reduce the confusion of applicants -- and the number of inquires to our staff members. This entails that, as a design principle, we should always bring prospective applicants back to "Graduate Studies" page. In other words, there is only a single entry for graduate application, where the DGS has control of information flow.
   
   I changed the mock up site so that wherever we have "How to Apply" links, they bring the applicant to the "Graduate Studies" page, rather pages of than individual "programs".
   
   
4. Research Areas: there were questions about the differences between Graduate Programs and Research Groups, but time didn't permit further discussion. Looks like we don't need much change here, except the "How to Apply" links.
   
   
5. About the Department: a few things need work here
   
   • Mission statement is too long
   • Quick Facts -- vital stats on # of faculty, grads, majors, and many more possibilities.
   • Brief History -- who writes this?
   
   
6. Time line: You should have seen the timeline on the righthand side of this blog. The committee thinks it's reasonable. We will see if this will work with WeST.
   
   
7. Where to go from here:
   
   • Gary will meet with Blyth on Friday to communicate the structure of the site and the feedback on their mock-ups.
   • Requests to faculty: Photos, and Bios
   • Feedback: via email and blog. Sometime in June/July WeST will present several designs for feedback.