Webmaster Committee Meeting Minutes

October 8, 2002

Members Present:  Jamie Bethel, John Chandler, Charlie Kerlee, Jill Lenz, Mary Pridgen, Linda Tarnoff, Sallie Varner

Old Business

Sallie gave a brief report on Thom Hadley seeing new software at MSU—she will speak to him when he returns. The committee's concerns include: Does it do validating? How advanced is it? How will it make the person's job it is to design and maintain our web pages that much easier?

Second level page format question: Formats not set, but we agree there should be some consistency. The student organization who inquired about the policy used our top banner for their entry-level page, and then went to their own design on lower pages.

The Committee prefers adding an organizational chart over reordering the list of Dean's Office personnel. Jill was going to look into making one that included links.

A question was raised concerning the new HTML programming software that has been proposed for the College. A demo was to have been scheduled for July or August, but nothing ever happened. Members requested that someone contact Dr. Fettman to request his attendance at the Committee meeting next month so that we can discuss this subject with him.

New Business

Photoshop Convention

Jill gave a report and played a short video from the Photoshop conference she attended in Florida. She enthusiastically endorsed the conference, and noted how excellent all the presenters were. The conference is staged by the National Association of Photoshop Users, and will be holding a West Coast meeting in Los Angeles February 19-21, 2003. The East Coast Conference featured 5 "tracks" that participants could choose from and Jill was frustrated because she wanted to attend them all, but was most impressed with everything, and particularly with Julianne Kost (John Chandler had seen her present somewhere else, and also highly endorsed her). One of the issues touched on by instructor Lynda Weinman, of www.lynda.com, was that "Web safe" colors aren't really necessary anymore, as the majority of users now have monitors that can handle millions of colors. The website www.PhotoshopWorld.com gives details of the upcoming conference. She touched on improvements available in Photoshop 7, and learned that Unsharp Mask can define edges very effectively for scanned line art (which is something frequently used in teaching) and showed us some options for eliminating Red Eye in photos. Jill's favorite new tools include File Browser, the Healing Brush, and Spell Check for text. A free 30-day trial download is available from Adobe at their website. www.totaltraining.com has short training films on the new tools available.

Jill's report is available at: http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/webmaster/reports/pscon02.htm

Additions to College Homepage

Jill and Sallie met with Liz Turney and Karen Wheeler and presented their suggestions and ideas to the group (see Agenda). The Dean's photo has been added to the Mission Statement page. We discussed the negative side of promoting a link to the Petline 9 link, which offers advice from our vets on healthcare. Linda and Charlie are concerned with how the vets feel about doing diagnosis online, and the group agrees that this may not be appropriate, and that we should discuss it with the personnel impacted directly before taking this suggestion. Sallie will ask Marty Yates to attend the next meeting to discuss the proposed links to CSU Fact Sheets and Pet Tips.

Sallie indicated that Dr. Fettman has some suggestions to broaden the scope of the Faculty Resources page, to include not just the FAS access, but Faculty Search info, Practicum Schedule info, Web CT and the PVM Course Outline.

Sallie asks members of the committee to email her with topics for our next meeting, scheduled for Nov. 12, 2002.

Submitted by Mary Pridgen 10/23/02

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