Summer is almost over, students are getting ready to move in and start classes again, and many changes to the web site are being unveiled.

At the top of the list, CSUCI is unveiling a new logo, which will be making its appearance on the CSUCI web site shortly.

A sneak preview is available. Learn more about the unveiling of the new brand.

In addition, the web team has made some subtle changes to the wayfinding navigation featured on web pages that use the CSUCI brand. During the next academic year, you will continue to see progressive enhancement in the wayfinding features offered on the CSUCI web site.

Perhaps even bigger news is last week's launch of myCI, the new single point of access for key services. Students can now use a single user name and password to access CI Learn, Dolphin Email, CI Records and other services. While not directly related to the web refresh, myCI represents a big leap ahead in systems integration and ease-of-use of the web at CSUCI. In light of the difficult economic circumstances faced by the University, the launch of myCI is an incredible accomplishment and a testament to the committment and talents of Information Technology employees, and we're proud to be a part of that effort.

Get ready, it's going to be an exciting semester!

Phew! It's been a busy month for the Web Refresh project.

The first draft of the Web Assessment report was sent last week to members of the Core Group for review and feedback. The group will be meeting shortly to discuss & refine the report before it is made available to the University community. The report summarizes the strengths and weaknesses identified in the refresh "discovery" process, and proposes a course of action for addressing key weaknesses over the 2009-2010 academic year.

In related news, CSUCI will be embarking on the first steps of a web content management system evaluation beginning in Summer 2009. Approval to commence the first project phase was given today by CIO Michael Berman. While this won't tie in directly with the web refresh project, it will have an impact on the future of content creation at CSUCI. Budget issues are a key consideration for this project, so progress may be hampered until the financial situation becomes clearer.

Stay tuned, it will be an exciting summer and fall for the CSUCI web site!

The survey analysis is complete; the initial report has been sent out for review.

In the coming weeks, both the Core and Advisory Task Forces will meet to review the survey report and weigh in on the results.

Using the survey results as well as other data & feedback, the Task Forces will craft a final "assessment" report to be shared with the University community at-large.

From there, we'll start developing the requirements & project plan for Phase II of the project. Stay tuned for further details!

Now that we have lots of survey data, what kinds of metrics would be useful for people to look at?

Here are some ideas:

1. First, segment data as follows: prospective students, parents, current students, donors, employees, general public, and as time permits, remaining categories.
   
2. Create reports for each segment, including long-answer
   
3. Compare 2004 questions to 2009 questions (at least, those that are the same) using segments if possible.
   
4. Compare segments: prospective students vs. current students; prospective students vs. parents

Thanks for everyone who participated in making the 2009 Web Site Use Survey a success. The response was overwhelming: we have over 1,100 respondents, so we have a lot of feedback to sort through. I think our response rate can be attributed to several factors:

• People value the CSUCI web site as an information resource. From prospective students to employees to the general public, so many people already use and rely on the CSUCI web site as the primary source of information about the University. www.csuci.edu averages over 8200 visits per day, and over 2100 (more than 25%) are new visitors to the site. These numbers will continue to grow.
  
  
• Our community is happy for the opportunity to voice its opinion. They are active and want to participate in shaping the future of CSUCI. We must continue to consider and evaluate all opinions and comments about the CSUCI web site, and take action to demonstrate that the University values this feedback and will address the community's needs.
  
  
• A coordinated, detailed communication plan. The Core Task Force created and implemented a plan to ensure maximum response and publicity. The plan covered techniques and timelines for getting the word out through email, print and web.
  

We've received an excellent response to our survey.

We have over 1,000 responses to date, nearly 10 times the number of responses we received during our previous survey.

If you haven't completed the survey, it's not too late:

Take the CSUCI Web Survey Now!

The survey will close at the end of the month; then we will begin the laborious process of analyzing our data.

Our web site survey is well underway, and we've had a great response so far from students, employees and the CSUCI community. To date, we've received 280 responses. A heartfelt "thank you" to all those who have taken the time to complete the survey.

If you haven't completed it yet, there's still time to voice your opinion!

Every survey counts; the Web Refresh Task Forces will review each and every survey response. We're certain that your feedback will help us improve the CSUCI web site.

The survey will run until the end of February. Once it closes, we'll start to tally and evaluate the results.

We're happy to report that the Web Site Use Survey is now live.

The survey will be available until March 1, 2009.

Take the survey now!

The feedback of the CSUCI community is critical to the success of our project, so thanks in advance for your participation!

Happy New Year! Looks like it's going to be a challenging but exciting year.

While CSUCI has been affected by the current economic crisis, this doesn't mean that the University can't take positive steps to improve its web presence at little to no direct financial cost. We've done it before, we can do it again: in 2005, the CSUCI web site was redesigned from top-to-bottom with no funds committed to the project, with overwhelming success.

Of course, the biggest difference between then and now is that CSUCI's web site is much larger. For example, www.csuci.edu had about 1,500 HTML pages at the time of the 2005 redesign. Today, www.csuci.edu has over 5,000. All this means is that we will have to spend more time prioritizing what issues need to be addressed.

Enter the Web Site Use Survey: an easy (and free) tool to help us examine our strengths and weaknesses and to prioritize our goals. We've been jumping through all the right hoops to prepare for the survey (revising, getting approvals, etc), and we're almost ready to send it out. It will be made available to the CSUCI community in the next few weeks.

Check back soon for more updates on the Survey. A link will be posted here when it's published.

In the meanwhile, consider this question: what steps can you take to improve your web presence that cost only time (not money)? We'll discuss some ideas in a future post.