Sarah Horton, a member of the HomeTeam and the director of Web Strategy, Design and Infrastructure, said that two members of the web services department -- Ellen Kanner and Alan German -- are working with the Office of Planning, Design and Construction to develop a more user-friendly campus map.
"A decent campus map is something we've been trying to get at for 15 years, but it's difficult because of the changing nature of this place," Rick Adams, a member of the Home Team and director of Web and Print Publications, said. According to Adams, the base map of campus is divided into 102 groups of graphical objects and updating the map with continued construction and changes to the campus was challenging.
Kanner said that she was hoping to use Google "mashups" and building overlays which would combine data from the Google Maps web site with data from the College to create a clear, searchable map.
"I think initially [the map] will be a prototype but hopefully it will land on the web site not long after that," Horton said.
The user survey, posted on the Dartmouth web site the week of Feb. 11, allowed respondents to rate various aspects of the site, such as visual design, navigation and the site's search engine. The members of HomeTeam said they intentionally advertised the survey on the Dartmouth site -- and sites linked from the homepage -- to ensure that respondents were limited to the site's users. Of the 536 people that responded to the survey, 48 percent were current students, and more than three quarters described themselves as frequent visitors to the site, said Martin Grant, a member of the HomeTeam and the web manager for the Office of Public Affairs.
"[The survey's participants] were either very satisfied or satisfied with what we're showing on the home page," Grant said.
Grant said the team also received negative feedback, primarily concerning problems with the homepage's interface and the quality of the campus maps posted on the site.
The Web Strategy Advisory Committee will meet in April and will continue to meet monthly to discuss the the web site. The members of the committee, all of whom are representatives from senior offices of the College, will discuss web strategy issues, Horton said, adding that the web site search engine and calendar were possible focal points for the committee's discussion.
Since the last Web Town Meeting in the fall, the HomeTeam has added a "Suggest A Story" link below the "Up Front" news section on the site and has also included searchable keywords on some pages to improve the efficiency of the site's search engine.
The meeting also addressed the introduction of "Dartmouth Daily Updates," a daily notification service that began on Feb. 18. The HomeTeam has received positive and negative feedback about the daily e-mail notifiers, and is in the process of reacting to comments to make the updates more useful to faculty and students, Adams said.
Web Town meetings are held once a term as a way for faculty, staff and students to learn about the Dartmouth HomeTeam and provide comments on current projects.
