History

The Web Redesign officially began in Spring 2004. With the rapid growth of the college, the website was difficult to navigate and lacked a unified web presence. The technology and structure used to create the original design also proved to be a challenge to update.

In an effort to refresh the design of the Terry College website and represent the majority of the college’s needs, the Web Advisory Board (WAB) was established. Eleven Terry College faculty and staff members were invited to represent the college to shape the future of the Terry College web presence.

Goals

The following goals were established:

1. Reduce web infrastructure maintenance.
2. Improve overall accessibility and usability of website, namely Section 508.
3. Enforce a persistent global navigation throughout department sites.
4. Consolidate and streamline similar or related content.
5. Enable the college, including individual programs and departments, to publish current news and events.
6. Automate routine content changes.
7. Refresh design and integrate the Terry College brand throughout department websites.
8. Leverage website as a marketing tool.

Content Management

The Terry College of Business web presence is comprised of almost 60,000 pages shared by more than 50 departments, programs, centers, institutes and publications. Designing a creative and flexible website while maintaining current and relevant content for the website is a difficult task for a small Marketing and Communications department.

The Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) and the Web Advisory Board immediately realized that the redesign had to also accommodate quick and easy content updates. Two content management systems (CMS) were evaluated and beta tested several years prior to the redesign project. Both content management systems created a website that was more-difficult-to-navigate.

Many departments found the CMS user interface too complex for simple content changes. Re-examing the Terry College website as a whole, OMC identified the following frequently edited areas:

• Class Schedules and Course Information
• Faculty and Staff Directory
• Photo Galleries
• News
• Events

Instead of depending on a single system for content management, OMC began investigating ways to facilitate the content updates.

Course Draw

With the active assistance of the Office of Information Technology, the Course Draw application was introduced in Winter 2006. Retreiving class schedule and course data directly from the University of Georgia’s Registrar’s database, the Course Draw application automatically updated the frequent changes of class schedules and course data.

Faculty and Staff Directory

The Faculty and Staff Directory was implemented in the summer of 2004. In Spring 2007, the Faculty and Staff Directory added key features that enabled faculty and staff to easily upload vitas, working papers, and selected publications. The consolidation of these resources enable web visitors to easily access the wealth of information the Terry College provides.

Photo Galleries

Photo galleries will enable departments and programs to easily add photos from events to their websites. Offering multiple sizes of the photo along with adding captions, the photo gallery application will expedite the process of adding photos.

Events and News Application (EaN)

The Events and News (EaN) Application will enable departments and programs to easily update events and news content to their web pages through the use of a simple web form. Preliminary development of EaN has begun. We hope to have the events functionality of EaN available by the end of fall semester.

Roadmap

Phase I

1. Terry College home page
2. Students, first level
3. About Terry, first level
4. News, first level
5. Directions
6. Contact Us
7. Department of Economics
8. Course Schedule
9. People Directory
10. Office of the Dean

Delivery Date - July 31, 2007

Phase II

1. Department of Insurance, Legal Studies, and Real Estate
2. About Terry, all levels
3. News, all levels
4. Webcasts, all levels
5. Podcasts, all levels

Expected Delivery Date - September 2008

Phase III

TBA