From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Colleges' Web Sites Should Heed Users' Needs (Chron of Hi
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 12:17:47 -0500
Colleges' Web Sites Should Heed Users' Needs, EDUCAUSE Speaker Says
By WENDY R. LEIBOWITZ
Colleges' Web sites should include "Web carrots" to lure more visitors,
including more faculty members, says Carl W. Jacobson, manager of
information services at the University of Delaware. And site designers
should pay more attention to what users want.
Mr. Jacobson, who led a discussion at the EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu)
conference here about refreshing institutions' Web offerings, also says that
when his university surveyed prospective students, they reported that the
least-important aspect of a university education is the one many
institutions highlight on their home pages: their traditions and histories.
=================================
EDUCAUSE NOTEBOOK: Students say the
least-important aspect of a university education
is the one many institutions highlight on their
home pages: their traditions and histories.
=================================
What students do care about, the survey found, is "academics in action."
Students want a comprehensive look at the academic offerings of the
institution, including reviews of courses and faculty members, Mr. Jacobson
says.
"The first-generation Web site of every college displays a famous building
on campus," he says. "Students do not care about the building. The
redesigned site, which still displays a small watermark of the building --
'It's our trademark' -- shows students actively engaged in learning."
Mr. Jacobson notes that some institutions, such as the University of
California at Los Angeles, allow Web users to customize their views of the
institution's site when they visit.
A visitor to the site who indicates that he or she is a prospective student,
for example, does not see the requirements for graduation on the first
screen. An international student might see different information than
someone living in the university's hometown. A senior might see material
about alumni networking and job prospects, as well as about preparing for
graduation.
Some students now design personal Web sites for their parents, notes Mr.
Jacobson, but there is no reason why the university cannot allow its Web
pages to be customized by users according to their own needs. "I think
students may have designed their own sites because a university site was so
bad," he says.
He also says that feedback about sites should be sought constantly: On the
bottom of every screen there should be a link asking, "Did you find what you
were looking for on this page?" But he warns that when information about
Web-site usage and needs is gathered, the results can be surprisingly
mundane: One of the most popular links on the University of Delaware Web
site, he says, is to the local
weather._________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education