UMN Art Department Web Redesign 2009

Web-redisign planning meeting

2010-02-17T20:07:59Z

Hello all,
I'd like to schedule a planning/work meeting to discuss our plans/tasks regarding the web-site

please use this link to show your availability:
please be kind and offer as many slots as you can in order to make a successful congregation possible!

http://doodle.com/5q9egmversga6t7r

a

ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF ART

2009-11-22T01:46:15Z

I have already started a draft of ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF ART (would this be the header page?) and need to have it looked over. It's possible that we might want something altogether different from what I have written and I'm certainly okay with revising it if I given some direction. How should I proceed? ROUGH DRAFT ONLY (I admit it's too long and needs to be cleaned-up considerably) ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF ART The Department of Art finds itself in the midst of an astonishing transition marked not only by the current financial challenges that face every specter of society, but also because of changes in the way we now approach the application of knowledge to everyday experiences. As a department within a large research university, we are committed to expanding the boundaries of knowledge through the critical investigation, interpretation and dissemination of ideas that are primarily expressed visually. We believe in establishing an atmosphere that encourages curiosity, experimentation and critical dialogue and see these qualities as essential to advances in artistic production and intellectual growth. Teaching, public engagement, curatorial practice, theory and studio work are no longer grounded in inaccessible and separate areas of information and experience, but integrated into complex ideas, global topics and themes. As a department within a large research university and located in one of the most vibrant urban areas in the United States, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul provide our students and faculty an expansive range of cultural opportunities and resources from which to find inspiration and develop new institutional partnerships and community alliances. The Twin Cities is home to several major museums such as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, The Goldstein Museum of Design, and The Museum of Russian Art. A number of dynamic non-profit organizations such as Midway Contemporary Art, Franklin Art Works, Northern Clay Center, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Soo Visual Arts Center, Textile Center of Minnesota, Soap Factory and the first of its kind, Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program make for a rich and diverse community of thinkers and practitioners. Because of this, the art community in the Twin Cities historically attracts writers, choreographers, musicians, composers, actors, designers and visual artists from around the world. Students majoring in art at the undergraduate level have the option of concentrating on a particular studio emphasis such as drawing/painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, photography and experimental media arts, as well as working at the intersections of contemporary art theory and diverse art practices.

TIME-LINE

2009-11-18T05:24:29Z

Dec 2, 2009: Completion of content review and the CLA-OIT Spreadsheet
Dec 1-4, 2009: CLA Photographer / Videographer visits to Regis
Dec 18, 2009: Completion of requests from CLA webteam in response to spread-sheet

CLA-OIT doesn't yet have an exact launch date for the new site (it depends mainly on us), but they forecast sometime in the spring of this semester!

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING FOR THE WEB

2009-11-18T05:23:47Z

• General rule: web writing should be less than half the length of copy you would use in traditional print media, such as brochures
• Write in small digestible chunks
• • Short sentences... 5 to 10 words
• • Short paragraphs... 50 words or less
• • One sentence paragraphs are OK
• Use relevant headlines and subheads
• Use bullet points
• Write short, one-topic paragraphs
• Provide descriptive links
• Use plain talk
• Keep writing consistent including: spelling, format, style, narration, tense, flow

WHAT'S NEXT?

2009-11-18T05:20:46Z

CLA-OIT will be doing the data entry for all our content, a tremendous help. In order to let them do that, we must provide them the content in the form of Microsoft Word files, placed in the said shared network drive's appropriate folder. Your task therefore is to find the content that you're responsible for, scavenge what you can from the current website, read-edit-improve the text in a MS Word document (see guidelines below), place the document in the right folder of the shared Web Redesign folder in MS Word format. Additional media (images, videos if necessary) can also be placed in the shared folders.

Once you have completed that step, you can change the Status column for that step to either the name of the approver (if different than you) or label it "complete"

I will be organizing visits by the CLA photographers and video people to document facilities; I will be concentrating on spaces and tools; if you have any special requests for your area please contact me separately. I hope that have the photographers visit during the first week of December.

HOW WE ARE GOING TO WORK

2009-11-18T05:13:09Z

We will use two primary online resources for working collaboratively: 1) an online spreadsheet with heirarchical organization of our web-sites content, and a shared network derive with a matching heirarchy of files and folders, 2) a shared network drive where we can copy stores and folders. Here is how you access these two resources:

1) CLA-OIT has created an online spreadsheet that will be their development teams guide for creating our new website (see below). You have all been given access to this spread-sheet. In order to find the relevant part of this spreadsheet you must go this this url, log in, and click on the "Department of Art" tab in the bottom of the page:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah5RWlZ1rqwEcGQyUWpFNnE4RG9MSG5IdEt6bmk5VXc&hl=en

If you have trouble getting access to this spreadsheet, please contact "Karen Bencke"

2) Layla has set up a shared network drive to which we all have access. To reach that drive, you must connect

For PC users, you should be able to just map to the S Drive, and look for the Web Redesign folder.

For Mac folks:
1. In Finder, select the Go menu
2. Under Go, select Connect to Server
3. In the server address box, type the following: smb://art-shared.ad.umn.edu/art-shared$
4. Click the + to add the serve to Favorite Servers
5. Log in with your internet ID and password

6. Look for the folder called "Web Redisign"

NB: If you are off-campus, you must connect to the U network securely by using a VPN client. Download the appropriate one from the UMN Office of Info Tech VPN page.

If you have trouble getting access to this spreadsheet, please contact "Layla Nereson"

Note that the ID/section numbers in the left most column of the spreadsheet correspond with the numbered folders on the shared drive, within the Web Redesign folder.

WHAT WE NEED TO DO

2009-11-18T05:12:43Z

The ball is now in our court; It is now our responsibility to point CLA-OIT in the right direction by providing them the necessary content, media and links. It is worth noticing that Theater Arts and Dance, as well as the School of Music are nearly done with this step, partly due to the publicity staff they have which we lack. Nonetheless, with cooperation from all members of this group, we should be able to move to the next step swiftly.

Specifically we need to do the following:

-Review and edit ALL texts presently on the site. Overall, we wish to make the language more concise, rely more on images and videos, and avoid redundancies. I have enclosed Karen Bencke's guidelines for writing for the web.
-Provide additional media (photos, videos, links) that should be visible on our web-site
-Provide all the help/information you have through the online spreadsheet created by CLA-OIT (instructions for how to access the spreadsheet are here). For our organizational purposes the most important column in the online spreadsheet is P: Status of Content. This column shows who is responsible for the specific content at the present. You should see your name next to some items in this column.

WHO WE ARE

2009-11-18T05:11:58Z

After conversation with DGS Jan, and CLA-OIT web-team leader Karen Bencke, we have compiled the following team

Art Dep:
-Clarence M
-Layla N
Art Dep Areas:
-Photo: Jan E
-EMA: Ali M
-Ceramics: Mark P
-Print Making: Jenny S
-Sculpture: Chris L
-Painting and Drawing: Diane K
Education:
-Undergrad: Joyce L and Cindy C
-Grad: Jan E and Cincy C
Regis Facilities:
-Facilities, Diane W, Ali M and Mark K. (will be eventually handed off to areas)

••• MASTER PLAN •••

2009-11-13T22:02:18Z

Hello all,
The new websites for the arts departments are now in development and the light as the end of the tunnel is nearer that you may think. The new websites promises to me much more media rich, much less rigid in its structure, highly supportive of content contributed by multiple faculty members and staff (as opposed to a single person) and much better linked to other university resources.

I write you as the chair our departments public-image/web-site committee to make you aware of the necessary upcoming steps, the time-line and the division of labor. I hope to accomplish our transition with the help of some of the web 2.0 technologies that make our upcoming web-site a powerful and direly needed communication tool. Most notably, I wish to reduce email-correspondence to near zero. Our collective work towards making this critical redesign happen will therefore be organized through this blog.

Please check out the short entries below to get started. You can book-mark these pages as they will always hold the latest relevant information.

-WHO WE ARE

-WHAT WE NEED TO DO

-HOW WE ARE GOING TO WORK

-WHAT'S NEXT

-TIME LINE

-GUIDELINES FOR WRITING FOR THE WEB (from karen b)

I thank you sincerely for your help with this important and long overdue project. Please feel free to post additional topics on this forum for your questions, concerns, advice and recommendations.