Welcome to the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Web site redesign discussion blog. The Office of External Affairs’ Communications & Marketing department and Center for Information Technology Services have teamed up to upgrade the current University Web experience, and we need your input. We’d like for you to voice your opinions on the current site’s strengths, and areas that can be improved. We would also like to learn about features you’d like to see on the new site.
Our goal is to make this process as transparent as possible, so that we can incorporate your ideas and make the University’s Web site a welcoming and informative destination about the University community, faculty, staff and students. We will keep this blog up-to-date with our progress and ask for your suggestions throughout the process. Your comments will help guide our process. While we continue our extensive research, please feel free to post content and functionality suggestions, accessibility recommendations, and other Web sites for us to review. The more ideas and suggestions we have from the UMB community, the better we can make the site.
Thank you in advance for your assistance and support in creating a new and improved Web site.
I want to see motion, e.g. a scrolling events calendar, a moving video or something pointing to an imminent happening for the week. I would also like to see some cleansing of the junk: clean columns agains light colors, sort of like a newspaper. Just my bias. Steve
I suggest an easier path or more visibility for “In the News” so that it can be yet another way to pull together the campus and inform outsiders of faculty expertise on timely topics:
http://www.oea.umaryland.edu/communications/news/inthenews
The search function REALLY needs improvement. For example. I needed to find the form to complete for my spouse’s tuition remission. I entered “tution remission form” in the search field.
Here are the hits I got.
http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/UMBaltimore?q=tuition+remission+form&domains=umaryland.edu&sitesearch=umaryland.edu&x=12&y=9
The first hit is actually the correct form but the link is med school. If I don’t work for the med school I would not even think to open this form. On this first page of hits you never get directed to the UMB HR site for the tuition remission form.
this is just one of about 10 examples I could give. It is frustrating to have to put in many search terms to get the proper link.
The benefits and HR pages need work. I agree that the search function needs work, too. It rarely helps me. Quick links on the main page aren’t very convenient or quick because you have to scroll down to get to them.
See what you think of http://www.mit.edu–the headings could be bigger for those of us with old eyes–but I think they do a good job of having an attractive, simple page with tons of information. I haven’t drilled down to see how effective the second layer is. Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
Greetings,
I am not sure if this is the proper forum to discuss my concern, but I thought that I would take a chance any way. As a current Physical Therapy (c/o 2010) student at UMB, I still find it hard to believe that there is no direct mention of the PT program on the UMB Welcome Page. Our program is pseudo-independent and receives academic and professional direction from the School of Medicine. You actually have to search for the PTRS department through a search engine or from the SOM website to get to the PT home page. I am not aware of another UMB professional school that is not currently listed on the Welcome page.
Again, I am not sure if these concerns will reach the appropriate eyes, but I believe that it is important to discuss.
To whom this may concern,
Thank you for welcoming user input. I am a current student of the DPT program. I have always found it difficult to access the PT program’s web page as there is no direct link to it from UMB’s home page. As has been mentioned by Jason, above, the only way to access it is to search for PTRS in the search box. Other institutions, offering multiple professional courses of study, have PT listed as a program. To name a few, University of Delaware, U.S. Army – Baylor and Thomas Jefferson are examples of websites of graduate schools with clearly identifiable links to the PT program. This is an important concern which impacts not only current students and users, but prospective physical therapy students as well as they search for their program of choice.
Thank you again for your consideration.