Webdesign Committee: Jan 19, 2000 Minutes

Members Present: Richter, Biles, Esau, Crawford, Murray, May, Erdwien, L'Ecuyer, Brandsberg, Johnson, McHaney, Sinn, Johnson, Rabold, Heinrich, Simmonds.

Discussion of the materials distributed by Cheryl May. --What makes a good website? Do we communicate a "sense of place" in our website? Can we give an overview of K-State and Manhattan? How do we enhance the appeal of the website to potential students?

Perhaps we could create a "My KSU" website modification system-similar to Amazon.com and other commercial websites-users can customize their information needs. Fine for "repeat" visitors (e.g., staff) but "?" for new visitors such as potential students.

We need to know more about Converge and Portals.

We need to identify the audience for our webpage-there are many different users/audience needs.

There are black holes in the webpage-some areas where information is missing include some of the Institutes and Centers that do not have webpages.

Action Items

• Action: John Murray will write to the "deadbeats" or, more properly, "deadletter" Institutes and Centers about the need to establish a web presence;
• Action: Neil Erdwien and Janelle Esau will develop a template for a web listing that can be use for a quick response by the Centers and Institutes to establish their web presence;
• Action: Bert Biles will review the website/URL for Community of Science (COS) and suggest ways to link faculty to our website for visitors who wish to search for expertise;
• Action: Gary Rabold will review links to the Technology Transfer/Commercialization sites at other universities to suggest areas for development at K-State.
• Action: All Members will review some favorite university sites to glean ideas for our revamp-some initial sites; Iowa State, Cornell, Purdue.
• Action: Committee Members (?) need to talk to the people who are answering questions from the public (e.g., telephone operator/webcontacts) about the types of questions that the public asks concerning the resources at K-State.

Next Meetings

Kansas State University
January 31, 2000