Since the spring of 2010, SGA has been recreating and revamping the McDaniel student website, dubbed the “Student Portal.” This site is being created and designed by senior Rafael Seyum.
Seyum has been working with Nick Bender ‘11, President of the Student Government Association and the information technology department to develop a more aesthetic and collaborative McDaniel intranet website.
Bender says that the mission of the new site is to “straighten the communication between student leader groups and students. Representatives from the Student Government Association, McDaniel Free Press, Terror TV, WMCR (McDaniel College Radio Station), and hopefully the Office of Student Engagement, plan to administer the site.”
Senior Micah Shelton describes McDaniel’s current website, the student intranet, as “antique” and “a bit macabre.” She also says, “I don’t remember the last time I have used the website to find information. It reminds me of old Glar, students only go there out of necessity. It only makes sense to facelift our information hub online as well.”
The original idea of the new student intranet website spawned from McDaniel’s initiative to upgrade its image online.
Seyum said, “The student intranet, currently, is underdeveloped and updated using Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. The biggest concern I have is the interface, which is confusing to use and the McDaniel community have trouble updating it consistently. That is why I chose to use WordPress, instead. WordPress is free and can be updated by multiple authors, opening the doors to student leaders around campus to publicize and share information more readily.”
WordPress describes itself as “A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.”
Here is a peek at the website, set to launch in the fall of 2011.
Is this anything more than a facelift/makeover/aesthetic improvement like the virtual equivalent of new Glar? Like is the interface (form + functionality) really responsible for a lack of student use, or is it something maybe to do with information and content? (I mean, I would hate to see $750 dollars just go to waste because of some kind of misunderstanding of the problem–$750 that potentially could have been spent on something more useful)
(We seem to be doing a lot of work on our image, lately, too. Not that this is a bad thing. Our image needs work. But you know. Just saying.)