Market CLAS programs and initiatives to prospective students, alumni, donors;
Help build community among our students, faculty, staff & alumni;
Increase business efficiencies, i.e. make processes more accessible and convenient for students, staff & faculty. Resources for the CLAS Web Committe
STUDENT STORIES TO HELP CONNECT PROSPECTIVE UNDERGRADUATES
There are so many schools doing this, it's going to become a missing link for high school students trolling our web in their selection process.
College of Business Admin, Butler University VODCAST -- Two students provide a video perspective on attending there. Very well constructed, without huge investment (i.e. the video on this page could be shot and edited with consumer, rather than commercial, technology)
Boston University (click on the vertical tabs)-- My personal favorite in this realm. Straight forward information without brain-numbing investment in the production.
Hamilton College -- Student Journals (These students receive a stipend for this work, and the writing is reviewed by administrative staff before it goes live.)
VIRTUAL TOUR FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS
One of the undergraduate prospect's most-clicked links, according to national research, counts as a "missing feature" of the UCD web site. Many colleges within universities create their own tours.
Carnegie Mellon
Daniels College of Business, DU
College of Journalism and Communications, Univ. of Florida (you'll see why we would NOT want web cameras)
University of Virginia -- shows that you don't need fancy 360 degree images to build a good online tour
San Diego Community College
INSTANT MESSAGING FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS
Stony Brook University -- best example from many, many to choose from. Student stories connected to this chat opportunity using blog software. Should be a winner for this university.
FUNCTION AND PROCESS FOR CURRENT STUDENTS AND FACULTY
Daniels Business School at DU -- online forms (some are still just PDFs, but the collecting together in a resource area just for students and faculty is a very functional concept)
University at Buffalo "Countdown to Commencement" -- well-structured process outline for undergraduates -- and easy to do
Boston University -- "Faculty Central" -- a whole site to help faculty find key information online
Ariziona State University -- Information for New Faculty
COMMUNITY-BUILDING BLOGS
Blogs are a trend that could fade. But a lot of people are blogging, and a lot of universities are offering the service. A community of blogs focuses the dialogue between community members and helps insiders reduce the overload of public blog sites. This kind of interactivity would be more challenging that some of the above examples, but probably doable if we made it a priority, and could share the resource with other schools.