September 12, 2004September 12, 2004We at HQ are in the process of revamping a number of the online services we currently offer as well as expanding the pool of services.
After taking a fresh look at the current organizational structure of our web presence, here are the steps I suggest we take to consolidate and streamline our services. Feedback and suggestions are strongly encouraged.
- VISTA website redesign. Paul is redesigning the current www.cpcs.umb.edu/vista website. (When it looks more polished, I'll post a sneak-preview web address for feedback.) An interface overhaul has been overdue for about a year plus. The stewardship of the website has changed hands at least two or three times since its inception (~ 5 years ago), and as a result nearly 2900 files are peppered about the folder which holds the website. We'll have to perform some housekeeping to prune irrelevant, outdated, and orphaned content.
- Wiki-centric intranet. Let's set up a wiki to serve a majority of the newly redesigned CTC VISTA website. This will enable all current CTC VISTAs + alumni + supervisors to contribute content to the website from within a web browser.
- Directory integration. Integrate the CTC VISTA directory directly into the official VISTA website. This will involve moving everything off sandbox and junking some web pages.
- Weblog integration. All of the various web addresses to access information are in disparate locations; one web page with quick links and weblog tutorials (!) will simplify life. And again, move everything off sandbox. (There are also some other MoveableType fixes in the works to allow people who are not logged into the software to post comments.)
- Greater reliance on RSS. We ough to take advantage of free services like blog lines (online news reader) and flickr (online photo-sharing application). It's vague at the moment, but we can, for example, create a "blogroll" of every VISTA's weblog and have all of the most recent X entries all on one web page (and create an RSS feed of that content!). Photo sharing works similary, but you can take a photo with a cell phone camera and then have it automatically uploaded to your weblog (!), for example.
Did I miss anything?
Posted by Saul Baizman at 10:17 AM