Minutes (Oct. 4, 2007) Web Advisory Committee
Present: Dr. Keith Krolick, Alan Miller, Kat Myers, Dr. Nedal Arar, Roseanne Hurst, Dr. Barry Norling, Doug Hartzler, Dr. Ivon Foster, Lydia Leos, Katie Prentice, Gilbert Sosa, Rene Torres, Tim Presley and Jim Barrett.
Dr. Nedal Arar, the chair, called the meeting to order. Committee members approved the Sept. 6 minutes.
Jim Barrett gave the webmaster's report. He said:
- Traffic on the two institutional web servers rose 8 percent in September over the same month in 2006.
- A special meeting of the committee is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 11 to consider web-template designs for the university's marketing and branding initiative.
- The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences launched its new web site Monday.
In new business, Dr. Keith Krolick said the Information Security Council recently discussed issues involving publication of emergency notices on the web. Several of its members said they thought such announcements should be password protected because they might give out sensitive and
potentially damaging information, Dr. Krolick said.
Dr. Krolick asked how emergency information currently gets posted on the web. Mr. Barrett said the notices usually begin at the police department, and are routed through the offices of the president or vice president of facility planning and administration. He said the chief communications officer issues public statements for the web and public media.
The committee discussed the value of password protection, and also how postings of dire emergencies could cause potentially dangerous reactions among people. For example, Tim Presley said, news of a sniper on the loose might cause people to run rather than stay in a safer indoor area.
Mr. Barrett said the university plans to introduce a free service for students and employees that would send text messages
to mobile phones in the event of an emergency. The Office of External Affairs would issue any messages, he said. He also said a committee was writing an emergency communications strategy.
Dr. Ivon Foster said the strategy is in draft form but contains a proposal to remotely host emergency-communications web pages so they would be available regardless of any local emergency.
Dr. Krolick said there probably needs to be a policy decision about when, if ever, emergency announcements need to be closed to an outside audience. He suggested the strategy also include a statement about the need to use the web in emergency communications. Mr. Barrett said he and Dr. Arar would send the committee a proposed statement.
Doug Hartzler said he wanted to ask the committee for its advice about assigning content to the homepage or "my page" area of the university web portal. Mr. Hartzler said the page would "run out of real estate" if all requests were granted. Committee members discussed whether giving prominent play should be permanent or temporary. Katie Prentice suggested that content items that are temporary probably would be better handled in the daily news items on the portal homepage. She said the items could describe where to find the content, and thus avoid assigning a permanent spot on the portal homepage.
There was no other business, and the meeting was adjourned.
-- Minutes prepared by Jim Barrett
-- Approved on Oct. 11, 2007
