With the support of our strategic partners at Stamats/Catchfire Media and the active participation of many stakeholders across the University, this fall the CI Web Refresh Core Team has made excellent progress.

Since September, the Core Team has led 11 group meetings with subject matter experts across the University, including faculty, staff and administrators in Academic Affairs, Admissions & Recruitment, Extended University, Student Affairs, Advancement, and the Office of the President. During these meetings, the team has reviewed proposed information architecture and navigation changes, and presented updated content models for review and feedback. In addition, members of the Core Team have presented project updates to the Web Refresh Advisory team and the campus IT Planning and Policy Committee. Members of the Core Team will continue to meet with campus organizations to help ensure unified implementation of our new web strategy throughout the next year.

The new information architecture (IA) has been developed based on this feedback, as well as the outcomes of strategic planning and research completed in cooperation with Stamats earlier this year. This IA facilitates access to information for all of our target audiences, while focusing on improving access to critical information of prospective students.

To accompany the updated IA, the CI team has been working to complete a content inventory for each of the nearly 200 key University web pages. Page goals, descriptions of content and interactivity, and calls to action are being defined for each page represented in the IA. In addition, Stamats has developed 30 pages of new content in conjunction with  our team and subject matter experts across the University to engage our web site visitors and to help tell the story of CI.  The CI team continues to meet with subject matter experts in each content area to provide opportunities for review and feedback of new and revised content, to ensure that campus organizations and services are represented accurately and appropriately.

Our talented CI web design team has been busy researching and testing technologies to improve the mobile user experience, and has begun developing initial prototypes of the new site structure and visual organization. During the fall semester, the CI team coordinated two usability tests with prospective students, and used the feedback to verify decisions about organization of our navigation. In spring 2013, we will partner with Stamats to complete further usability testing of our prototypes to ensure that the navigation and organization of our web site makes sense and is easy-to-use across a range of devices, including smartphones and tablets.

The Core Team continues to work closely with our partners at Stamats/Catchfire, meeting as a team on a weekly basis and individually throughout the week as needed to solve problems and answer questions. If you have any questions about this project, feel free to leave your comments here, or contact me at Peter Mosinskis via email at peter.mosinskis@csuci.edu, or call 805-437-8587.

Finally, a huge thanks to all those who have contributed their time, thought and energy towards this project during 2012. This project wouldn't be possible without the vision and dedication of our team members and the ongoing support of our campus community and leadership.

On behalf of the Core Team, we wish you all the happiest and most relaxing of holidays, and we look forward to working with you to launch the updated CI web site in 2013.