WEBMASTERS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

November 8, 2005

Present: Jamie Bethel, Marty Fettman, Tom Harmon, Charlie Kerlee, Jill Lenz, Erin Napier, Linda Tarnoff, Merry Wright.

Jamie Bethel, Chair, began the meeting at 9:08 am.

New Business

  1. Jamie - In the News rotating images on the college home page. It's been about 6 months since the rotating news items and images have been added. Jamie estimates it takes him 8 hours a month to maintain. Jamie asked for feedback and suggestions. Discussion followed with the overall consensus that they are important enough to continue. It was agreed that only items open to everyone in the college and/or public be posted. For example, not FAC-type info or club info open only to club members. Jamie offered to continue to manage this even if he is no longer chair. Jamie mentioned he needs more items and pictures. Merry offered to get some of her new faculty to contribute.
  2. Jill encouraged attendance at the CTSS Workshop "Test Your Favorite Webpage with ..." on Friday, December 2 from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM. Instructor is Cath Kilcommons from the Assistive Technology Resource Center. Our college standard browser is currently IE6, yet there are many other free browsers available and it's a good idea to view your web pages in them. Cath takes this a step further, exploring the built-in Firefox tools to test your favorite web page for usability and accessibility. To view the complete description and register, visit http://www.ctss.colostate.edu/, click on Training, then Workshops.
  3. The Clinical Sciences Continuing Education pages at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/clinsci/ce/ are no longer maintained by Lori Williams. All of the pages still have Lori as a contact. This needs to be changed. Tiffany Banfield is taking over for Lori and from what Jamie was told she does not have any web development skills. Tom will give TIffany permissions on the web server. Charlie will invite her to a webmasters meeting.
  4. Merry gave us a review of the proposed new look for her Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences home page and lower level pages posted on her private T drive.

    1. Process: Merry works with a web site redesign committee from her department to give their home page and lower level pages a new look. For the home page they want something different from the current consistent department home page look with their current long vertical picture collage, something that will attract undergrads and grads to their programs. She is still waiting for content on many 2nd level pages. The ERHS web design committee is made up of many people which are basically split into two camps, those that like lots on info on the home page and those that like it clean, simple and bare. Merry struggled with trying to incorporate suggestions and content from both sides and asked for any ideas to take back.
    2. Features of the new look:
      1. New larger top level banner incorporating several separate images from around the campus and department.
      2. New background color, same as their undergrad pages, a grey-green.
      3. Two new circular graphics to represent the shape of a cell, placed side-by-side to equally represent the Graduate and Undergraduate programs, each with clickable links to the different areas within the respective programs.
      4. Left navigation with accessible, easy to maintain text-based flyouts.
    3. Discussion, opinions and suggestions
      1. How does it look when the browser window is resized? A horizontal scroll appears.
      2. The top banner is too top-heavy. Return to current standard top banner and move pictures from new top banner to another area on the page. Suggestion: perhaps have rotating images similar to the Clinical Sciences home page at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/clinsci/
      3. Where is the CSU logo? At the bottom.
      4. Too much on home page. Suggestion: remove two circular items and replace with some or all of the mission statement from the online brochure or current news items like the new MIP home page
      5. Circular items in the middle are redundant to the left navigation, and not consistent with advertised programs in the university course catalog, therefore misrepresenting the college
      6. Discussion and agreement that all department level home pages must incorporate the current top banner and if additional navigation is needed, using some type of a left hand navigation.

      Merry will go back to her committee with the suggestions and the message that the new design must not stray too far from the current departmental home page look and will redesign a new look to show them. Erin mentioned that when she redesigned her department home page look, she only worked with her department head, not a committee, which made the process a lot easier.

  5. Other announcements: Jill plans to modify the CVMBS Web Style Guide to a table-free layout with the knowledge she gained at a recent web design seminar.
  6. Vote for new Chair: It was unanimously agreed the committee would be co-chaired by Erin Napier and Tom Harmon. They will discuss with Jamie the optional duty of keeping the college home page new items up to date, or take him up on his offer of continuing to manage this.

The meeting concluded at 10:00 am.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 13 th, 9:00-10:00 am, W1 A/Z.

Minutes submitted by Jill Lenz.

Return to Webmaster Committee Minutes page