WEB Rebuild Project

As the summer winds down, we’ve launched another handful of sites with the help of our graduate students, who all did a wonderful job.

Among other pages, we launched the College of Business, the School of Nursing and Health Professions, Academic Advising and Resource Center, Campus Recreation and University Police.

Browse around nku.edu and check em out!

We also learned we will be keeping four of our five graduate students throughout the school year! And we may be adding some more folks soon . . .

Stay tuned.

After adding five grad student workers to our team, we’ve expanded yet again!

Welcome Becky Weatherford and Terry Boehmker to our little (but growing) team.

Becky and Terry will be serving as Web writers and will be working - hopefully - in an office close to us on campus. As of now, they’re just working in our offices, which is cozy - and also fine. Becky came to us from UC, where she has been working for the Hoxworth Blood Center’s site, and Terry (as some of you may know) comes to us from the Cincinnati/Kentucky Post.

These folks are going to continue to work with us to develop the new, rebuilt nku.edu.

A little more than a week ago, we reached another milestone as we were able to launch the first of our “Summer Sites.” Congrats go out to Tom Ramstetter and the Honors Program for setting a goal and reaching it - all within the same month! Awesome.

Our student workers are doing well, and we know our new hires are going to continue to succeed at this high level.

Check back for more.

Later!

of a lovely rebuild.

Which was happening right here at NKU.

We all worked real, real hard, but we noticed,

that we need help too.

So this one day we found dough to hire interns.

We told Communication there were jobs to fill.

And now, we’ve somehow formed a family –

That’s the way we expanded Web Rebuild.

The Web Rebuild. (Da, da, da)

The Web Rebuild (Da, da, da)

That’s the way we expanded Web Rebuild.

*****

I can’t believe I just wrote that. Seriously. Oh well.

What I’m trying to say is we’ve hired student workers for the summer. Yep — our Rebuild family has grown. Thanks to the graduate program in Communication, we have five new student workers who are putting their marks on our website. Meet them:

Tiffany Emerson - has a BA in PR from EKU. Wow, that’s a lot of acronyms. She also has a certificate in French Language and Culture. Oui! Jacques Cousteau! She’s also interned in advertising, marketing and at a radio station.
Jill Johannigman - has a BA in Speech Communication from NKU and was a member of the two-time Norse national runner-up soccer squad. She’s worked as a soccer coach, in real estate and interned in public relations.
Dina Neumann - has a BA in Communications from Trenton State College. She most recently worked at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital as an administrative assistant and web content assistant. She also has a certificate in Travel & Tourism and was a four-time All-American gymnast.
Tom Ramstetter - has a BA in journalism from NKU. He has more than 10 years of experience working for the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Post and NKU’s own sports information.
David Ta - has a BA in Communication Studies and Germanic Literature & Language from the University of Kansas. He also is proficient in Vietnamese and has experience in computer building.

Well, there they are. All are currently working toward a Master of Arts in NKU’s Communication department.

Together, they will acts as liaisons between NKU departments and the team members of the Web Rebuild. Then they will assist in rebuilding site architecture and rewriting web pages.

And rumor is we may have some more folks joining our team sometime soon . . .

More updates to follow!

First off we want to thank everyone who has responded to the Feedback link on our new Home Page. We want to make sure we’re on the right track, and without your comments we wouldn’t be able to measure our progress.

Again, a big thanks.

Now, we’d like to be able to use this blog as an opportunity to communicate with all of you - our users. Here, you’ll be able to find some responses to your questions, as well as suggestions on how to navigate around the site. We know we can’t respond to all of the issues, but maybe we can touch on those that have come up the most.

It’s been a great week, and we are still extremely happy with the way the site is being received. Members of both Web Communications and Information Technology will continue to take your questions in the lobbies of both UC and AC. Please continue to leave Feedback with the button located on the home page, or in the Contact NKU link on the bottom of every page.

That said, many of the comments we have seen question where things are located. While we have made some adjustments to our site architecture to make some things easier to find, we want to draw your attention to the A-Z link at the bottom of every page. There, you can find an alphabetized link of every department on our site (some other helpful links, too). So if you need help finding something, check that link, then bookmark your favorites. From any page you can find the A-Z link, meaning that from any page you are only TWO CLICKS AWAY from any department. Check it out.

We’ve also seen a lot of comments asking why, among others, the Bookstore, Steely Library, Information Technology and Salmon P. Chase College of Law are not featured as links on our home page. The answer to this is actually simple. We wanted to restructure our site in the most logical way possible, and in doing so, we developed departmental pages and student service pages where those topics can be found. We feel this reorganized the site in a more logical way. Again, if you’re having trouble finding any of those topics, use the A-Z links at the bottom of every page. The Current Students page also features many of these links.

We hope this helps you understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. More questions? Give us more feedback!

And just who will be joining our team?

You’ll have to wait a bit longer to find that out.

Later!

“This site looks great!”

“The new home page is awesome, good job!”

“The new site rocks. NKU rocks!”

With 100 percent of the new web pages deployed, NKU is reporting a landslide victory for Information Technology and Web Communications. This one is definitely NOT too close to call.

That’s right - our website is out, all 700-plus new pages of it. We’re tired, excited and proud. And based on comments like those above, our users are too. Yes, there are broken links. Yes, there are mistakes here and there. But overall, we’ve deemed this launch a success. The feedback we have received is already helping to make the site easier to navigate, and we appreciate more. Tell us what you think!

Teams in Web Communications and Information Technology have been working with various members of the NKU community to produce these pages, and we hope you all are as proud as we are.

Members of both teams will be in UC and AC Wednesday to offer help with those who have questions about the new site. After that, we plan on catching our breath for a moment, then starting on our next phase!

Those next colleges and departments will come out incrementally - that is, when they’re ready, they will go live. So expect a lot more updates from this blog in the near future.

What’s next? Well, we’re going to be introducing some new characters to the group. Who? When?

Stay tuned.

And all through our halls,

Every creature was stirring and climbing the walls.

That’s what it feels like here as we try to push out the latest - and largest - phase of our web rebuild. We launched the College of Informatics site last year, but now we’re pushing out more than 600 pages at the top level, including admissions, academics, campus life, About NKU and the home page. All of it publishes tomorrow, and we’re all racing to get the job done.

We know there’s going to be a LOT of questions, so we’re prepared. We’re going to set up members of our Information Technology and Web Communications teams in the lobby of the Administrative Center to help those who have questions. But the folks who will be updating their sites have already been through training on our content management system - Serena College - so they should be in the process of taking ownership of their sites around this time.

There’s going to be more updates tomorrow, but for now, we’re busy.

Wish us luck!

The second phase of our new Web Rebuild project – the completion of top-level pages – will be rolling out in mid May.

Areas to be completed include: Admissions (Undergraduate, Graduate, and International Student Affairs), Academics (Programs, Faculty and Staff, Community Involvement and Employment Resources links, among others), Campus Life (Student Services, Things To Do, Get Involved and Housing and Dining, among other links), About NKU (Give to NKU, At A Glance and the President’s Message, among other links), Registrar, Bursar, Financial Aid and the Home Page.

Whew. Once the new links are in place, our site will have a completely different feel and look, one we hope will be easier and more informative for all of us to use.

And that’s good, because that’s our goal.

Check back for more updates. Right now, we’ve got work to do.

You know how excited you get when you peep under the Christmas tree to find that really big present with your name on it?

That’s how we’re feeling right now.

We see the big present — the university’s ongoing web rebuild project — but we know we just have to be patient a while longer.

Since the launch of the newly rebuilt Informatics pages in September, we have been busy here in Web Communications as we coordinate with folks from IT to rebuild other sites. Already we have met and developed new plans for the Graduate Admissions, Undergraduate Admissions and International Student Affairs home pages. Inside pages have been reworked, too. Next we will be working to rebuild pages for the Bursar, financial aid and other top audience pages. Then we’ll tackle NKU’s home page, and in the spring, we’re hopeful we will be able to launch those top level pages.

Here’s a few examples of what we’ve been doing. Hopefully you’ll notice a more vibrant look to these pages. Our colleagues have requested a more distinguished feel than the current site offers, but we also want to make sure not to lose the fun elements that attract students, faculty, staff and others to our site.

(IMAGES COMING SOON)

Shifting over to content, representatives from Stamats visited NKU just before Thanksgiving to give us some tips on how to write for the web.

Among other suggestions they gave us, they said to:

- Keep it short.
- Sprinkle bullets and strong verbs throughout your copy.
- Remember your audience.

All in all, it was very beneficial, and for those interested in learning more about writing for the web, contact web editor Ryan Clark at clarkr9@nku.edu. If enough people respond, the web editors in Marketing + Communications will give the presentation again.

Check back for more updates in January.

Happy Holidays!

Drumroll please …

The newly designed College of Informatics site launches today. Congratulations to everyone involved! The site came together thanks to the superhuman efforts of the College of Informatics’ Chris Brewer with support from COI faculty and staff contributing content, IT Web Applications team along with IT student workers, and Marketing + Communications staff.

The link to the new site is: informatics.nku.edu. Use it. Peruse it.

We’ll now be shifting our focus to the design and content of the NKU homepage, the top audience and topical pages, and the Enrollment Management pages, which include the Office of Admissions, Student Financial Assistance, Office of the Registrar, graduate admissions, law school admissions and international admissions.

The administration, faculty and staff of the College of Informatics have been wonderful and cooperative throughout the entire rebuild process, and we’re excited to meet and begin working with other university departments.

- - -

We have two new additions to web communications, within Marketing + Communications.

On Sept. 4, Ryan Clark and Megan McCarty joined the Marketing + Communications team as web editors. They will be helping to provide and edit content for the new sites.

Ryan worked for about three years in The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Kentucky newsroom before coming to NKU. While at the newspaper, he covered a variety of topics, including following NKU’s undefeated softball team on their run to a third-place finish in the national championship tournament two years ago. Before coming to The Enquirer, Ryan worked for a newspaper in Jackson, Miss., where he wrote about stories on the environment and the military. A native of Louisville, Ryan earned his undergraduate degree in editorial journalism from Western Kentucky University, where he finally graduated after two rigorous senior years. While at WKU, Ryan interned at some of the nation’s largest newspapers in Atlanta,
Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining the Office of Marketing and Communications, Megan served for a year and a half as Communications Coordinator at Chase College of Law, where her responsibilities included writing and editing web news, press releases and marketing publications. Before coming to NKU, she worked as a proofreader for Landor & Associates, a branding and design firm in downtown Cincinnati, and for the Office of Communications and Marketing at Ohio University. She has also written and edited for a variety of magazines, including HOW magazine, I.D. (International Design) magazine and Southeast Ohio magazine. She received her B.S.J. and M.A. from Ohio University.

Ryan and Megan are located in Lucas Administration Center 701C.

Happy summer to everyone! We are working extremely hard with the web rebuild project. Here is a quick update:

Coding
The IT web team and the College of Informatics’ Chris Brewer have been working together in coding the template framework. I am extremely happy and very impressed with the hard work they have completed. The web team will continue to work on porting the coding into the content management system (“CMS”) for further testing of that system.

Writing
We are working with Stamats on revising some of the written content they have given us already for the College of Informatics, Admissions, Chase College of Law, and some of the top level pages. Once they finish the revisions, we will continue to work with Stamats on some of the different pages on the site. They are contracted to write 100 pages for NKU, to which we have seen about 30 of those pages.

On a related note, great news regarding our two web editor positions, they have been approved. We should have the jobs posted online and in a few newspapers sometime in June. Both positions will take on the responsibility of writing for the web as we move forward. Each position will have its own focus. The first web editor position will be 100% dedicated to writing for the web, while the second position will focus on writing for the web early on, but eventually will spend some time working on graphic treatment on the web (such as Flash animation) as well as assist in developing online marketing campaigns. We hope to have those two positions onboard by the end of July.

Images and Flash Animation
We are working internally within Marketing + Communications to finalize the group of images we will have on the homepage.

Informatics
As mentioned above, IT and the College of Informatics are working together in getting the pages coded and into the CMS. We are aggressively pushing forward and hope to have the College of Informatics site up sometime this summer (as long as we don’t run into any major issues with the CMS or with content creation)

Check back in a couple of weeks. I will be updating the blog more frequently as we start to get closer to the launch of the new Informatics site, and ultimately the new top-level pages for nku.edu.