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		The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Minutes (Feb. 21, 2007) Web Advisory Committee

Present: Dr. Alison Beck, Gilbert Sosa, Debbie Valle, Dr. Nedal Arar, Alan Miller, Lydia Leos, Dr. Keith Krolick, Tim Presley, Mary Yanes and Jim Barrett.

The chair, Dr. Alison Beck, called the meeting to order. Committee members approved the Jan. 31 minutes.

Jim Barrett gave the webmaster's report. He said:

• Server traffic in January rose 3 percent, to 1.9 million page views, over the same month in 2006.
• A tryout of the Browsealoud browser plug-in is under way. He had asked members of the Academic Council last week to try the software and return feedback.
• Yahoo! had responded to his complaint, and corrected an erroneous search result that gave the office telephone number of a faculty member when Yahoo! users searched the term "university hospital san antonio."
• He had tested the committee's idea of requiring owners of non-uthscsa.edu domains hosted by the university to share their usernames and passwords with the webmaster in case a domain registration needed to be changed. Mr. Barrett said using another person's log-in did not disclose credit-card information. He said he did not want to be able to see such information.

In new business, Mr. Barrett said the School of Medicine had questioned the content of the library's web site, GoLocal, a reference database that lists thousands of practicing health-care professionals, clinics, and support groups in South Texas. Funded by the National Library of Medicine, the site was launched in 2005 as a public service. The school complained that the site made it appear the practitioners had been endorsed by the university because the site carries the university's seal. Tim Presley said the school is concerned that UT Medicine practitioners and services are included in the guide. Mr. Barrett said the library and School of Medicine agreed to meet, and include additional information to reflect clinical professionals in the university's own faculty-practice organizations. Mr. Barrett said he would send the web site URL to the listserv, and report back on progress.

In other new business, the committee discussed the traffic on two new pages posted in Spanish in September. The pages are designed to help Spanish speakers locate web sites and services at the Health Science Center. Mr. Barrett said the pages drew modest traffic: One page, with summaries of services, averaged 91 page views a month. The second page, which translated the site index, received 11 page views. Dr. Beck asked for a way to compare traffic to other pages, and said the Spanish pages are designed for a special segment of the population so traffic may indeed always be lower. Dr. Nedal Arar supported keeping the Spanish pages because of the university's working relationships in the South Texas region and for grant purposes. Dr. Keith Krolick said he wondered whether the pages would show in a Google search of Spanish language pages. The group performed sample searches on Google, and agreed to add Spanish meta-tag keywords that might raise visibility.

At the close of the meeting, Mr. Barrett said he had been trying without success to persuade the Computing Resources Department, his own department, to repair its web site and update content. Alan Miller said he also was experiencing delays in getting web content and design updates within his department, the Office of Student Services.

There was no other business, and the meeting was adjourned.

-- Minutes prepared by Jim Barrett and Mary Yanes
-- Approved March 23, 2007