Buffalo State will soon have a new destination for alumni, a dedicated online community! Kelly Mazella of the Alumni Affairs Office has been doing a bang up job of getting all the bits and pieces to come together for this. She’ll keep the wheels turning and the fires burning once it launches. It will go live this semester and here’s a sneak peek of what’s in store:
Thank you to those who attended the Webinar on Web 2.0. It was great to see you! For those of you who could not make it, you can download a .pdf file of the presentation here (PDF, 1.3MB).
Buffalo State College uses Urchin as our Web analytics program. You can find out more information about it here: http://www.buffalostate.edu/statistics.xml
Hope to see you at the next Webinar!
There’s a new place in town—for students, faculty, and staff. We’re expanding on the “For Faculty/Staff” page idea and taking it to the next level. What will you find there? All the great tools and resources you had before, plus a few additions.
How to find MYBuffState
Look for the MYBuffState link, right at the top of every page. You’ll then be taken to a landing page to choose whether you are a student or faculty/staff. You’ll be whisked away to your MYBuffState page. Hooray!!
You’ll still be able to Find People on every page.
Why are we doing this?
It’s about time, don’t you think? As our site grows, the tools, links, information, and resources that different audiences need, increases, and the places to logically put them becomes a challenge. For example, the students section is currently several different sections with pages of links to search through; their e-mail is in a separate section, etc. Now, students will have what they need, all on one page.
Stuff That’s New!
The Toolbox: Our data from prospective students shows they prefer the most simplified site navigation, and that internal links with names like Angel, Banner, Degree Navigator, etc., only confuse them. In order to make it easier for external audiences to get to the nuts and bolts of Buffalo State, and to make internal tools and resources easier to find for internal audiences, we’ve taken these tools out of the main site navigation. They’ll now be in your Tool Box on your MYBuffState page, right at the top of the page, easy to find!
News and Announcements: A news pull will keep you up to date and announcements will be included from several sources so you won’t miss out on what you need to know. What’s going on in the forums will be included as users post
The Academic Calendar: Reminders from the Academic Calendar will now be right at your fingertips (at the top of the page).
See what students said about the new MYBuffState:
http://www.buffalostate.edu/podcasts/2008/09/20080926_1215_refresh.mp3
Today, we are really, genuinely excited to unveil the new Buffalo State Web site for you to preview. You can see it at http://www.buffalostate.edu/refresh/, and comment on it below. Any and all comments are welcome!
If I seem uncharacteristically to the point, it’s because we have been working a lot, and I do mean A LOT, to get to where the site is right now, and we’ve still come some way to go. The preview is just that—a working preview of the new site design. Some areas are complete or close to it, others (*coughNewsandEvents*cough*) are maybe slightly less close to 100% complete.
I know that along the way, a lot of things have been said about where we were taking the site. A lot of things have changed in the office as well. Four years is a long time to wait for a redesign, and in Web years that’s about 50 years of waiting. We’re glad, now, to finally show off some of the things that we have wanted to highlight for a long time.
Some features to get you on your way:
News and Events: A new News and Events section to highlight all that’s going on at Buffalo State. News, events, publications, academic calendar reminders, blogs, podcasts, Ask Buffalo State forum posts, the latest from our View photo gallery—all that and more is located here in a one-stop overview of campus activities.
My BuffState: In the previous refresh, faculty and staff told us they wanted a page all their own. It’s been redesigned, and now Students have one too!
New section pages, new page layouts, and a new homepage and footer are some of the other features.
Mark talks more about it in this spotlight, and we will be talking it about more here.
So, peruse and enjoy, and comment below. Positive or negative, we want to hear it all!
But now, a little bit of rest.
Say goodbye to the Focus On banners. They will be going away. Our data shows that the banner destinations were almost never arrived at through the banners. If users aren’t using them, that makes them basically, well, useless. We thought they were a great idea (way back when…sigh).
So, where do we go from here? Why to the News and Events section!
The newly-combined News and Events section will be the place to go for things going on at Buffalo State. This page will house features from:
News stories
Events
Video and audio podcasts
Blogs
VIEW
Ask
All our great news publications
Buffalo State stories
Media placements
Buffalo City Guide
You’ll find it easier to view events, podcasts, get to all the stories you need from one page. One stop shopping for all you need to know!
Subscribe to this feed