By the time everyone on the committee has strongly influenced the colours, the functions, the placement of content, and every other detail, you’ll be left with a lifeless, senseless, overloaded site, and a powerful headache. — Mark Boulton
Congrats to San Marcos on launching their new web site, powered by Cascade Server no less. Thanks to my automated system for grabbing screen shots I can get a historical perspective. Here is a QuickTime export of the shots:
CSU San Marcos Web Site (.mov)
Mulling through some more data, here’s a look at the Campus web server statistics from the last 6 months compared with the previous 6 months.
Yesterday we launched a refresh of the online Campus Directory as apart of our efforts to remediate websites that are not accessible. The update looks more or less the same visually, but there’s much more exciting stuff happening under the hood including a sprinkling of the hCard Microformat where applicable.
Years ago in an interview I was asked how I would solve the university’s web consistency problem. At the time, the thought was “good luck!” In an environment with a decentralized web site, it seemed unlikely that content management would happen. That question has been asked once again, but now we’re in a better position to answer that question: “How do you manage the Chico State website?” Here are my personal thoughts on how to approach this problem.
Accessibility has been a driving force behind the urgency to find a solution for web management. The need to ensure that all of our pages are accessible along with the desire to streamline the process of creating websites has been combined under a new Web Governance plan. In the coming months, committees will be formed and discussions will take place about where the future direction of the Chico State web presence and how we will get there. Below, is a diagram of the problem as I see it and how I would go about implementing a solution.
