June 24, 2008 Webmasters Committee Meeting Minutes

Present: Jamie Bethel, Jill Lenz, Erin Napier, Linda Tarnoff, Larry Cobb, Merry Wright, Judea Franck

Jill Lenz, Chair, started the meeting at 9:05 am

Old Business

1) Review Webmaster Committee Charge from 1997 to brainstorm possible updates to eventually present to management.

For reference at the meeting, below is the current member list by department, program or unit found at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/webmaster-followed by the committee charge found at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/webmaster/charge.html.

Current Member List by Department, Program or Unit

Department of Biomedical Sciences - Sallie Varner
Department of Clinical Sciences - Charlie Kerlee
Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences - Merry Wright
Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology - Erin Napier
Computing Resources Group - Tom Harmon
Dean‘s Office - Linda Tarnoff
Instructional Technology - Jamie Bethel
Instructional Technology - Jill Lenz, Committee Chair 2008
Veterinary Diagnostic Lab - Jay Kammerzell / Carrie Schmer
Veterinary Teaching Hospital - Charlie Kerlee
Ex Officio - Pete Hellyer

Charge: Membership

• Webmaster representative from each academic department
• Webmaster representative from major administrative and service units
• Liaison Members
• Network Services and College Computer Committee
• Faculty Computer Advisory Committee

Charge:

• Develop and enforce high quality style (layout, design and appearance, file structure) for major web pages of the college, departments and some units.
• Serve as an information exchange and training forum for web page production.
• Webmasters from each unit should serve as the contact person in their unit for adding links and updating unit web pages.
• As a committee, define standards for content; and individually, be the approval person within each unit.
• Responsibility is focused on the development and production of non-interactive informational pages. HTTP server issues and development and production issues regarding web pages that require interfaces with other programs, special software or hardware remain the responsibility of the college Computer committee. 09/17/1997

Discussion:

• How did the charge originate? Larry Cobb said 10 years ago there was a College Computer Committee, but it doesn‘t exist now.
• Questions to ask ourselves about other liaison members – who are they and why are they part of the committee?
• It would be appropriate to remove the Network Services & College Computer Committee and replace it with the CRG group?
• A major administrative representative would be someone at dean‘s level.
• A faculty representative would be from the academic level.
• Larry Cobb suggested when we re-write the liaison membership list, we submit it to the Executive council for approval and buy-in. Some support for a revised webmaster committee charge and for committee liaison membership, from upper management, would be good. To that end, Larry suggested we ask Ken Blehm if he would like to be a faculty rep and also ask Pete Hellyer if he wants to remain as ex-officio.

Also discussed related to the membership and the committee charge:

• What‘s the reason a faculty representative is there and what‘s the input we want from this person?
• What‘s the purpose of the web pages?
• Are we focusing only on top level pages for recruitment or information dissemination?
• Merry Wright commented that the charge seems very out of date and Larry Cobb agreed and asked those present what would we do, as a committee, if we could do anything? Some items on that wish list:
  • Participate in development of a standard of information dissemination that teaches a user how to navigate for information retrieval.
  • Be able to say ‘no‘ to a design style or content and have back up. We all agree that‘s what the webmaster committee should be able to do.
  • Develop the web site with dynamic content, perhaps like a newspaper site.
  • Have the time (labor) to build and maintain the information.

Discussion of what is newsworthy produced this suggestion – check with Dell Rae Moellenberg from CSU Public Relations about the services she provides for the College. See below.

• If your "news" fits into categories below and is deemed "newsworthy", her office will interview the faculty member/gather information and write a press release that you could then repurpose for the department websites.
• Key times to contact Media and Community Relations with information:
  • When you receive a research grant or know that a research grant is pending (please contact us several weeks before an announcement should be made, if possible);
  • When you are involved with an interesting research project – at the beginning, the conclusion or in process – particularly if this project relates to current news;
  • When you have a paper accepted for publication in a journal – several weeks before it is published; (embargos will be respected)
  • When your program or department receives a positive ranking or achieves recognition;
  • Anytime you feel that you have some information that you think might be newsworthy that could also benefit your program, department or college.

Erin mentioned she would like an editor for her internal newletter. We might approach Carol Borchert about doing this. Undergraduate news can be submitted for inclusion on the Admissions web site through Tom Moreland.

Larry asked Jill to draft a rewrite of the committee charge and circulate it to all via email for consideration and comments.

2) Outside Contractors Update

Carol Borchert is currently gathering data from individual department stakeholders to eventually formulate content guidelines for the department home pages and to build a case to management to further pursue the redesign project. Although she has only met with two of the four departments, there are many common concerns.

There is no current Don Zimmerman update as Jill and Don haven‘t met since the last Webmasters meeting; next scheduled meeting for Jill and Don is 6/25.

Meeting adjourned at 10:16 am.

Minutes submitted by Merry Wright.

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