WEBMASTERS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

September 14, 2004

Members present: Jamie Bethel, Marty Fettman, Tom Harmon, Charlie Kerlee, Jill Lenz, Erin Napier, Mary Pridgen, Carrie Schmer, Sallie Varner.

Guest: Ken Blehm

Sallie Varner, Chair, began the meeting at 9 am.

Old Business

  1. Links on the homepage, which were discussed earlier and now have been removed: -- Colorado Injury Center (Dr. Lorann Stallones has now moved the site to the Dept. of Psychology) -- IREH no longer exists and link removed per Dr. Reif.

New Business

  1. Jill has been working on updating the code on the College Home Page from HTML 4.0 to XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and is now near completion. The page is at: http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/index_in_progress.htm. Most of the changes are transparent. Last month, committee members were asked to look at the page and vote on whether they liked the new red mouse hover on the links. While there were not a lot of responses on this, all that were received were positive.

    Jill explained the reason for updating the source code is to meet the new recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium. They have a detailed explanation at http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq that answers questions such as "Why is XHTML needed? Isn't HTML good enough?" and "What are the advantages of using XHTML rather than HTML?". Jill will update the web style guide to XHTML 1.0 Transitional and help webmasters tailor a new XHTML compliant template for their unit to use when building new web pages.

  2. Ken Blehm requested a link to the soon to be developed Undergrad Student Council web pages from the Student Organizations page at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/student_organizations.htm. The Council would like to post their constitution, meeting minutes, announcements, proposal request process, status of proposal under review for award of college technology fees, financial status and other salient detail. The link was approved. Ken will work with Tom Harmon to get space and permissions for the designers on the web server. Once the pages are created, Ken Blehm may contact Linda Tarnoff to have the link added to the Student Organizations page.

    While discussing Ken's original request for a link from the Students page and analyzing the pages linked under Academic Programs, it was noticed that some pages do not conform to the current template with the top navigation banner. Jill will offer to her assistance to Linda to clean up the following pages:
    http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/DVM_PhDCombinedProgram.htm
    http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/MBA_DVM.htm

  3. From Jill: Should we continue to list the EM Center as a flyout under "Outreach/Services" on the College Home Page since it was disbanded this summer? I see that the EM Center home page has been updated with this fact and lists other contact names, which is good for folks that may have bookmarked the page and need to know this new information. Marty recommended and it was agreed to leave it on the college home page, but shorten the wording to "Electron Microscopy", dropping the word "Center".

  4. Vote for new Webmaster Committee Chair and Secretary.

    Duties of Webmaster Committee Chair:

    -- Chair monthly CVMBS webmaster committee meeting.

    -- Set agenda for monthly meeting and send out a reminder for each meeting along with the agenda.

    -- Reserve and set up presentation equipment and schedule facilities.

    -- Manage the webmaster committee listserv.

    -- Approve meeting minutes submitted by secretary and post the minutes to the CVMBS webmaster website.

    -- Modify the committee web site with updated monthly meeting information.

    -- Interact with individuals in CVMBS and the University regarding content of the website and meeting agenda items.

    -- OPTIONAL: Update CVMBS home page with news items and associated graphics (Jill has offered to take on this responsibility if the Chair is unable).

    -- OPTIONAL: Offer advice and help on other College web pages.

    Jill has volunteered to continue as Secretary. Jamie was nominated for Chair. Both were approved. The committee thanked Jill for her detailed minute taking and Sallie for chairing the committee for two years and doing a wonderful job. Sallie said it was a great learning experience then turned the meeting over to Jamie.

  5. Jamie showed where online documentation is available for the new portal. Comments about the portal include that it's not so customizable as expected, but there is a new calendar function for students that they've never had before and once integrated with Aries and WebCT, it should be great.

The meeting concluded at 9:35 am.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 12 , 9:00-10:00 am, W1 A/Z.

Minutes submitted by Jill Lenz.

Return to Webmaster Committee Minutes page