The Web Refresh Advisory Task Force provided some excellent suggestions at last week's meeting regarding the survey. Those suggestions have been incorporated into the survey, and we are finishing up the paperwork and approval necessary to issue the survey.

Some of the new questions on the survey relate to how web site visitors prefer to receive information from the University, as well as the frequency of use of Web 2.0 technologies.

For those unfamiliar with the term Web 2.0, it refers to the "read-write web": that is, enabling users to personalize web content more easily and quickly than ever before. Examples of Web 2.0 technologies include wikis, blogs, and social networking web sites.

As adoption of these technologies increases by members of the CSUCI community, it makes sense that the University examine how they can be used to improve communication. The Web Site Use Survey should provide some useful preliminary insights.

Tomorrow, the Web Refresh Advisory Task Force will be meet for the first time. The group will review and provide feedback on the project plan and outline for Phase I, as well as a number of associated documents, including an upcoming web site survey.

The project is taking off quickly, and it's great to see active participation by such a large group of stakeholders from across the campus.

The project web site went live this afternoon, which includes a link to this blog.

Meeting agendas, notes, and other supporting information will be provided there throughout the project.

Before you start to change things on a web site, you need to know:

1. what to change; and
2. why you are changing it.

Well, it's that time again! :)

Those of you that have been at CSUCI for a few years may recall that in 2005, CSUCI redesigned its web site based on extensive research organized by the University Web Steering Committee and the departments of Information Technology and Communications and Marketing.

As with our physical campus and community, the CSUCI virtual environment continues to grow and change. To keep up with these changes, CSUCI has decided to re-examine its web environment to see what's working well and what isn't, and to determine what improvements must be made.

Over the past few weeks, Peter Mosinskis and Nancy Gill have been meeting to discuss the general parameters and a project plan to help "refresh" the web site.

We're looking forward to reviewing the successes we've achieved over the last 3 years, reviewing our goals, and addressing as many new issues as we can. It will be a challenging but rewarding process.

Most importantly, to ensure success of the project, we must foster an environment of openness and collaboration. We will accomplish this by incorporating feedback from the University community as much as possible throughout the process, including the use of this blog.

In the coming weeks, our project web site will be updated with further information.

Thanks for your interest in this project, and we look forward to working with you soon!