The home page of the Shepherd University school website was recently given a makeover under the direction of administrators from the office of communications.
Valerie Owens, Executive Director of University Communications, and Tim Haines, Assistant Director of University Communications, were in charge of the effort to revamp the website.
“We had wanted to update the website for some time,” Haines said. “We wanted to make the homepage less cluttered, and the user experience more streamlined.”
Along with the webpage redesign, the hosting service changed from an on-campus server to a cloud service. “We knew that we wanted to update the server,” Haines said, “and it happened to coincide with the webpage update. So we obtained a cloud hosting account and deactivated the old server.”
Among the stated goals for the new website was to make it more accessible. “We found which features people were using the most,” Owens said, “and made those front-page links.”
In addition, staff and faculty should find the website easier to update. “Before, we were using HTML,” Owens said, “and we had to come to [Haines] to update anything. With WordPress, we can all make changes. It is much more user-friendly.”
Remote access is also more robust, owing to the cloud hosting. “I used to have to be on campus all night in case of a weather delay,” Haines said. “Now I can update the website from my house in Hagerstown.”
The University contracted the services of Adam Leviton, a web designer and former student, to create the website. “[Leviton] was a natural fit,” Owens said. “He understands the culture here and is a WordPress wizard.”
The website is by no means complete, and probably will be in transition for some time. “First we have to update all of the administrative pages,” Haines said. “Then we can guide the departments through setting up their new pages.”
A lot of the second and third level pages are still in the style of the old website, due to the dynamic rollout. “We were ready for the update at the beginning of the semester,” Haines said, “but we knew that would really throw people off. So we chose to start the rollout in the sixth week of the semester, at 11 p.m. on a Thursday, to try to reduce the impact on our users.”
The cloud hosting service is run from a Linux server, so there were a few compatibility issues. “Most of our processes migrated well,” Haines said, “but there were a few that needed modifications. In addition, it took some time for the index files to propagate, so some users continued to see the old webpage for a while.”
“We hope that the new website will enhance our users’ experience, and we plan to continue rolling out updates as they become available,” Owens said.
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