Web Communications Group>

Web Communications Group Meeting: 10-26-06
Meeting minutes

I. The meeting opened with a brief update from the Penn Web Calendar Group.

• Reviewed high-level reasons for why we want a new or improved calendar.
• The group is conducting a survey to obtain feedback on our current calendar.

II. Penn Experience web site discussion:

• This new section of the Penn web would be a central area that incorporates information from all 12 schools to provide a lively, comprehensive view of life on Penn's campus.
• Heide Fraley, the designer of Arts@Penn, Research at Penn and the Penn Compact brochures, was present to listen to the group's comments and ideas on The Penn Experience. Her new firm Swivel Studios will work on this project if it is approved.
• Bucknell University has a site entitled the Bucknell Experience that includes student, faculty, and alumni profiles. WCG members agreed that we should include staff in The Penn Experience.
• The group looked at profile examples on the following web sites:
  • Smith College : student profiles are accessible from their homepage.
  • Gettysburg College : video student profiles are accessible from the homepage.
  • University of Virginia: includes "Meet a Student" that is accessible from their admissions web site.
• Bucknell also has a "Picture of the Week" that helps to promote user participation. Several WCG members have suggested allowing users to submit photos to The Penn Experience.
• The group looked at the UC Berkeley Online Tour web site as an example of a site that gives users an expansive view of campus life--including student and faculty profiles, detailed campus information and easy access links to other important areas of the Berkeley web.
• The audience for The Penn Experience would most likely be internal and external; including prospective and current students, faculty, and staff.
• The WCG needs to decide what type of information is going to be included and to identify ways to pool content resources from different schools and departments.


• Summary of group feedback regarding The Penn Experience:
  • Create an area that highlights the city of Philadelphia.
  • Include video and RSS feeds. There was also a discussion about having an area of the site where students, staff or faculty can submit videos to be viewed on the site. Wharton has video on their site which receives a great deal of positive feedback. SAS includes videos of their 60-Second Lectures on their web site.
  • Suggestion to possibly include some type of virtual tour. Certain group members liked the Mount Holyoke College Tour which uses Flash. Research would need to be conducted to see if Flash would be acceptable for use in this site. The group also looked at Yale's virtual tour that included a "Yale and New Haven" tour in addition to the typical campus photos.
  • Flash is popular with younger users and they expect to see this type of technology on the web. A suggestion was made to have an area of the site that is aimed at younger users that includes Flash and video.
  • Suggestion to include profiles of individuals (including undergraduate, graduate, faculty, staff, and alumni) that contain a short video, blog or Q&A.
  • The Penn Experience should be a window to the university; combining profiles, virtual tour, fun facts and happenings that provide a feel and flavor to Penn.
  • Need to convey a genuine message about The Penn Experience—users, particularly young people, can tell when you're trying too hard.
  • Must determine how much copy to have on the site. Also need to figure out how to address all target audiences without diluting the content.
  • Group members discussed the possibility of having blogs on the site. The following items were discussed:
  • Blogs encourage user participation and will provide the user with a more authentic experience of life at Penn. Visitors will get to experience Penn through the eyes of actual students, faculty or staff members.
  • There should be a variety of blogs; including grad and undergrad students, staff, faculty and alumni.
  • The Athletics department is considering creating a coach's blog.
  • Other group members suggested that a page be created that includes blog highlights that link to those particular blogs.
  • Repurpose existing blogs throughout Penn.
  • Wharton currently has an MBA Admissions Blog which receives a lot of traffic and is popular with young people.

III. The group concluded with a brief discussion on the Penn Digest:

• News and events could be pulled from Research at Penn, Arts@Penn, Penn Current, Knowledge at Wharton, Almanac and University Communications news releases.
• Digest will tie in with calendar.
• Certain schools or departments may have their own areas of the site (e.g. Athletics, Alumni, Wharton, Medicine, etc.)
• Group members looked at CalTech Today web site. Page 1 focuses on campus-wide news and events while Page 2 focuses on faculty and staff related information (e.g. Human Resource events)
• Heide Fraley suggested that users be able to customize the page to enable them to view only their areas of interest, similar to MyYahoo or MyGoogle.

University web standards, guidelines, page templates and logos.

News feeds and RSS information.

View news feeds from around the University in a single, automatically updated page.

Images of the University of Pennsylvania for download.

Penn Perspectives is a series of ongoing conversations with people doing exciting, innovative work at the University of Pennsylvania.

TV Spots: Penn has developed three new TV spots that highlight the University’s long tradition of ingenuity and entrepreneurship.

• Penn Nursing
• School of Arts and Sciences
• Penn Veterinary Medicine
• Wharton School
• Athletics
• Penn Medicine
• Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology