mission and goals
You guys are probably hard at work, and I don't want to bore you, so reading this is certainly optional. If you want, just skim this to see if you think my interrpretation of depart. mission and how our site figures into it seems ok.
Departmental Mission and Goals of the Site
Alison Bennett
The mission of the EMU English graduate studies department is to provide students with educational experiences which will prepare them to apply broad humanist philosophies to challenges of contemporary society. This mission is best be realized when the department actively partners with students insure academic success. Essential to student success is a departmental commitment to provide students with information necessary to make informed choices when plotting their course of study. But if this commitment is to be meaningful, it must be made in the understanding that students do not just participate in the educational process , but also participate in a larger society as parents, children, spouses, employees, or employers-roles which place competing demands upon their time and attention. The challenge then lies in finding efficient, easily accessible ways to give students such information. Maintaining a department web site is one way to meet this challenge.
With this mission in mind, we conceived our site to disseminate information. First of all, we wanted to make a site which contained the items normally considered to be within the scope of a departmental website. But we felt that if this site was to be truly compatible with the departmental mission, we needed to anticipate what problems students and faculty might encounter when trying to get their questions answered. We saw that the department site needed to function as a springboard to problem-solving information beyond the realm of pure academics. Therefore, the primary goal of this site is to anticipate problems from a proactive stance, and supply information that could solve those problems.
As we made decisions about the nature of students’ problems and how our site could help, we became aware of another goal. We wanted the site to look good to the outside world, and to show the Graduate English department at Eastern Michigan University in its best light. To do this, the finished site should have appeal that is both functional and aesthetic. It should feature an uncomplicated navigation scheme. It should follow a design format that allows room for future expansion, yet be relatively simple to maintain if it is to remain a good future resource.
The site designed by our group reflects these goals in a number of ways. The conventional types of departmental information are prominently displayed in the left side bar on all pages, as this arrangement appears consistent with the expectations of most viewers. The order of the links are place according to how we envisioned they would be used. For example, it’s logical that new users would first want to know about the various program offered, so it’s in the first slot. Users may or may not need contact information, so it appears in smaller text below the side bar. We opted to forgo a link to departmental news, although this is a common feature on many of the English department pages that we researched. Departmental news pages often require frequent updates which could prove burdensome if resources for site maintenance are limited. A display of outdated news items looks like either no one is doing anything anymore, or no one cares enough about the site or its audience to keep it updated. Outdated news could also cause readers to mistrust the validity of other site information as well. In place of news, we included a page on "Events" such as upcoming conferences and scheduled departmental activities. Since these things are scheduled in advance, this type of content would require less updating than would news pages.
Providing general information is a useful endeavor, but the drawing power and usefulness of the site depend upon its ability provide information that will solve the user’s problems. The first step toward making our site a problem solver was to differentiate solutions which required information only, from those that required production of something tangible. Solutions which require filling out forms are a good example of the latter. Forms are a universal reality for current and prospective students alike. By including the "Forms" link in the left side bar on each page, the site allows the user to download desired forms without having to delve through more text heavy informational pages.
Problems such as that of how to get forms seem to cut through all groups, but many problems are more specific to a particular type of user. To enhance the problem solving potential of the site, information was classified according to kind of user who would be most likely to need it. Prospective students would certainly be dealing with some different issues than would students currently enrolled. Faculty members should not have to plow through a multitude of student concerns in order to get their questions answered. In the process of sorting out problems by who would be most apt to have them, we identified three main types of potential users. Grouping these users in second tier pages is a logical and efficient arrangement. Users don’t have to pick through a list of items that aren’t relevant to their situation. Issues that require input from outside links, such as that to financial aid information are placed here, because we felt that this is when most readers would be ready to receive it. In other words, by the time they needed to know about financial aid opportunities, they would have made preliminary decisions about their course of study. They would have already learned a little about the requirements of graduate English department (as specified in the handbook), and are now either enrolled or considering enrolling. Identifying information and displaying information according to user also serves a proactive approach. Often those who need information aren’t immediately aware that they need it. Prospective students, for example, might not have thought much about housing, but seeing the link on the Prospective Student page, will not only remind them that they need to know what their options are, but also make it convenient for them to find out.
The final goal of our site frankly involves packaging and presentation. The design should serve the purpose, or at least preventing it from becoming a distraction. Unnecessary "bells and whistles" such as animation or excessive graphics would take the focus off from content, so our group employed a relatively simple layout, consistently using colors and banners to unify individual pages throughout the site. There are not a lot of graphics that will need to be rearranged, should it become necessary to expand the site in the future. The images used contain subject matter that portrays facilities and grounds consistent with those of a modern university. The result is a site whose design reflects well upon the department, anticipates its users needs, and gives information in a straight- forward fashion.
We see the informational, problem-solving functions of this site as ones that should continue into future use. How this site evolves will depend upon the depth of resources devoted to it, so this point, there are only suggestions and possibilities. One avenue to explore is the possibility of creating space to showcase student and\or faculty projects of interest. Such space could include, but would not necessarily be limited to publications, studies, or presentations. It might also be worthwhile to provide venues for discussing or commenting on such projects via on-line chat groups, blogs, or similar devices. Although expansion in this direction would involve extra upkeep on the site, the potential payoffs would be the reenforcement of a concept of a learning community which transcends individual course levels, allowing the opportunity for interaction between individuals whose paths may not cross otherwise.
Another area of possible development involves linking to appropriate and feasible sites outside of the university. For example, students who are new to the area may have questions about the community which could best be addressed by outside links. Taking the site in this direction would involve a consensus on what might would qualify as appropriate links, as well as some well supported research about the benefits of this practice. While this type of expansion could prove not workable for the immediate future, the possibilities should be considered.
posted by "Grinder" at
8:53 AM
|
2 comments
