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
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.
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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!
You can apply online at:
https://jobs.buffalostate.edu/applicants/jsp/
shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1219675740212
Brief Job Description:
Responsible for developing, implementing, testing, and maintaining
database-based applications, forms, and other interactive applications
featured on/connected to the college's official Web site. Work closely and
regularly with the College Relations Web team on data integration,
customization, and display. Provide campus template users with content
management system technical support.
Required Qualifications:
Proficiency developing advanced, easy-to-use database-driven applications
using PHP and SQL; experience developing applications that operate
consistently on multiple platforms and browsers; ability to manage numerous
projects simultaneously in a fast-paced environment; completion of some
college-level coursework; two years related work experience.
Preferred Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree; experience working in an Oracle environment; technical
support experience; experience working in a higher education environment;
basic Windows and/or Unix server administration experience; three years
related work experience; familiarity with W3C Web Accessibility
Guidelines/Section 508; familiarity with ASP, Perl, PL/SQL, Oracle 9i or
above, XML/XHTML, CSS, SOAP, or Javascript.
Special Instructions to Applicants:
Provide two live PHP and SQL application development work samples and a
description of their role and responsibility for each project.
Take a look at our past entries, and you'll get a feel for where we are, and where we're going as a team. There's a lot of exciting things coming up, and we want you to be a part of it. Apply now!
Questions can be left in the comments, or by e-mailing kruczypt at buffalostate dot edu.
]]>Calendars aren't often considered very sexy applications when compared against other online offerings. "Calendars?," people say, "I think those are stupid compared to this YouTube video. Look how awesome it is!". And, like many things in life, unless it's a video of Charles Nelson Riley dressed as a banana, they're wrong.
Traditionally, one of the major problems with calendar applications was getting the information in there in the first place. Who wants to re-enter a bunch of information that may already exist someplace else? That's idiotic, and a waste of time. Luckily, you no longer have to waste your time.
The iCalendar file format was invented to allow you to publish (share) and/or subscribe to calendars you find online. If a calendar is published in iCalendar format, just click on the link and faster than you can say Bic Banana: instant calendar data.
The great thing about subscriptions is that the data in your calendar is updated as soon as it's updated online. Subscribed to the Theater Department calendar? As they add events to their schedule throughout the year (or years to come), those events will show up on your calendar automatically. It's an easy way to keep track of U.S. holidays, local weather, and, most importantly, Buffalo State events.
You bet we do! In fact, we've had it available since 2004! Unfortunately, while programs such as iCal, Google Calendar, Mozilla Calendar, Sunbird, KOrganizer, Kronolith, and Novell Evolution have supported subscriptions for years, previous versions of Outlook didn't completely support all the features available. With Outlook 2007, and its subsequent rollout on campus, these features are now available to you in the privacy of your public work area.
Subscribing is easy! I won't go into details, but details are available on our Web site. Pick a calendar, and sign up today!
There are many places to look, but iCalShare is a good place to start. Just remember to look for it when you visits sites with event information--you may be surprised by how many people are using it!
Have a favorite calendar? Suffering from numerophobia? Write a comment below, and let us know what you think!
]]>In case you missed it:
We chose the occasion of the University Police Department’s Emergency Response Training (ERT) exercise to try out the college’s emergency “lite” Web page. I’m proud to report that the test went off without a hitch.
The college has had an emergency Web notification system in place for many years, but the lite Web page is something the team has been working on for the past few months. What is it? Put simply, it is a no-frills method of presenting important information on the Web during a crisis.
Back in October, members of the Web team attended the HighEdWebDev conference in Rochester. Michael Dame, director of Web communications at Virginia Tech, delivered a presentation on crisis communications that was both moving and alarming. Dame’s lecture provided the inspiration for the design and development of this page.
In the event of an emergency, the regular Buffalo State homepage would be exchanged with this streamlined page which provides brief, time-stamped news entries and safety instructions. By including few graphics and no database pulls, there is less stress on the server in the event of a sudden spike in Web traffic. This ensures that the site stays up and that critical information can be updated.
All in all, the exercise was a complete success and campus got its first (and hopefully last) glimpse of the emergency page.
The arts have a strong tradition at Buffalo State, and alumni are understandably proud of the work they and their peers have done. Theater alumni are no different. That's why it should be no surprise that there was recently a request for more photos of past productions posted in the Theater Alumni forum.
It's great to see people using tools such as the Buffalo State Forums and View to stay in touch and share memories. It's also great to see people proud of their time at Buffalo State. Talking, sharing, and posting are all ways to help maintain that sense of Buffalo State community. It also helps to share the message that there is great work being done at Buffalo State--now, and in the past!
Obviously, not all alumni discuss Buffalo State in our forums. They also do it on their own sites. We recently ran across a great story discussing an alumni's first published logo as an undergrad at Buffalo State, for the 10th Annual Dance Marathon. That student? Mark Wisz, co-owner of Otherwisz and Where to Roam. This isn't the first time he's written about his early design experiences--just the first time that he happened to do so when I was making a new feature for our blog. You can find more at the Roam Buffalo blog.
The hubbub is that, as we keep saying, we're focusing on the story of Buffalo State. One of the greatest disappointments, as a staff member, is knowing that many people here--students, faculty, and staff--are working or have worked on great projects that too few people know about. The only way to change that is to talk about what you do or have done--and shine a spotlight (or highlight) on those that are talking about Buffalo State.
Are you an alumni or current student? Working on something great or inspiring? We always want to know what exciting things you may be doing. Comment below, or contact us!
]]>No?
Well, Fashion and Theater have blogs, to name a few, so why don't you?
If you're interested in a blog for the upcoming semester, I'll point you over to College Relations Blog Information Area (It's not really called that, but it sounds better than "the blog page") for more information. This will give you the basic information you need about blogs on campus. Pay particular attention to the numbered list at the bottom of the page, especially the timeframes.
If it's a new blog, we need to know one month before the beginning of a semester. "But Paul," you say, "you're telling us this less than a month before school starts!". And, of course, I'll not let on that I was hoping you wouldn't notice. Which is why I'll tell you that we're having a Blog Blowout! Request your blog now! Quick! This sale only last through the end of next week!
If you already have a blog, then we'd like to remind you of equally important point number three: Your blog administrator will select student bloggers for a single semester or full academic year. The blog administrator will inform College Relations of the names of the student bloggers within the first 2 weeks of a new semester.. That's only three weeks away!
If you are interested in having a blog, please contact us. If you're a student, and you love to write frequently, especially about your experiences here at Buffalo State, then contact us and/or your department chair. Let's see what we can work out together. We love to have bloggers!
Thoughts on blogging? Thoughts on the writing style of this post? Thoughts? Share them below in the comments. Thanks!
]]>That didn't happen.
But: That's ok.
Why?
When refreshing or designing a site, it's normal to have things change. It's also normal to expect that if one design element changes, other parts of the page need to change as well. This is what happened to us last week. That, coupled with a crush of work brought on by Sue's impending vacation, meant that this just couldn't be completed to everyone's satisfaction by last friday.
Without an updated version of the header to share with you, I want to focus on the navigation we unveiled in the last post and highlight one item in particular:
After a several year absence, news and events are returning to a prominent place in our main navigation. Sue said it before, but we're telling stories in this new site. One of the lost stories about our campus, is just how much is going on, on campus! There are always events, news, and more going on at Buffalo State College. Unfortunately, what we often hear, is that people don't always know what's happening on campus. We highlight items on our homepage, list them in the events calendar, the Daily, department and office sites, as well as throughout our main site. Despite this, we still hear a need for more information.
Pulling out news and events into their own section is exciting! It will help first-time visitors to the site, as well as the campus community, have a very visible overview of what's happening on campus. It will also allow us to showcase the news and community we have--in the Bulletin, Blog Central, the View photo gallery, the Ask Buffalo State and Buffalo State Forums, and more--that make up such a vital part of the story of Buffalo State, both on- and offline.
Of course, we can't do it without you. If you have an event to promote, submit it to the events calendar, then record it for a podcast. Have an announcement? Put it in the Daily! News can be shared via our news releases. There are a lot of tools that already exist for you to promote your event, yourself, and Buffalo State, to the world--and there are more to come!
This is a basic overview of where we're going. More specifics will come soon--which, I've learned, is the safest timeframe to give sometimes.
How does this sound to you? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? Leave a comment below and let us know.
]]>A few weeks ago, I was ready to post an entry on our refresh. Content and concepts were being worked on. Features were being refined. Navigation was being renamed. The site was really taking shape, with all the different page types beginning to hang together. Watching a site come to life is one of the most exciting parts of working on a project. No matter how much you plan ahead, those plans change once you begin building a site. So, once it begins to come together, it's great. To celebrate, I wanted to share what we'd been working on!
Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough.
As good as the heading had become, we decided it just wasn't good enough. Back to the drawing board (or Photoshop, as the case may be).
This doesn't mean I don't have an update for you, because I do. It's not the current version of the header. This is the header we had before we made some changes. The current version will be up later this week. In the meantime, here are versions one and two presented for you to compare. Click on the thumbnails for larger versions:
Here's what you saw before:
And here's where we were before starting over (again, not the current version of the header):
Among the changes to this design: the main navigation was redesigned, the search box refined, and, overall, the header was streamlined.
Here they are again, compared top to bottom:
The other big change is that we've included our new navigation, previously omitted. There will be posts with more information about the navigation, as well as the new and improved site design, coming soon.
Otherwise, we are working away our summer. This isn't the only exciting thing we're working on right now. We'll all be writing more about forthcoming features in the days and weeks to come.
We want to know what you think about the design so far. Do you like the direction we're heading in? What would you like to know more about? This blog is to help us know what the community is interested in, so please leave a comment below.
]]>Here's the non-hypothetical answer: we are still doing a refresh. Although certain aspects of the project have changed in the short-term, we're still committed to refreshing the main Buffalo State Web site. We're still telling stories and bringing new views to the site.
We are also still committed to updating our blog, I swear. Watch this space for more updates as the summer progresses.
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Web 2.0: What It Means, How It Works, And How To Use It To Your Advantage Web 2.0 is significantly altering the higher education marketing landscape. As a social and cultural phenomenon, it's transforming nearly every aspect of digital communication, from Web site design and content creation to search. This session will clarify the phenomenon and its ramifications, and explore the 2.0 tools, strategies, and tactics colleges and universities should add to their marketing, recruiting, and advancement arsenals.
You'll gain an understanding of:
• The similarities and differences among the key social media platforms and technologies
• The rules for engagement that underlie any effective 2.0 strategy
• How to build your own 2.0 community and be part of existing communities
• How to integrate 2.0 principals and tactics into traditional marketing
Download the handout: Web 2.0 Webinar (PDF, 800KB)
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