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| Home page features fresh, functional look |
by Cindy Abole
Public Relations
Starting Oct. 24, the MUSC home Web page will unveil a fresh,
redesigned look. The redesign project serves multiple purposes by
providing accessibility to all MUSC employees, students and the general
public.
The new look reflects MUSC’s progress especially following the addition
of Ashley River Tower in February, plus reorganization of new clinical
programs to promote quality and patient care, advent of campus building
projects and statewide collaborations through partnerships. It also
promotes the institution’s new logo—a visual identity that symbolizes a
new era of health care for South Carolinians. The information
architecture of the site features updated landing pages that are geared
by topic, audience and navigation options; drop-down links to
secondary-level landing pages; changing flash images and a new
navigational search engine located at the work bar on top of the page.
Overall, this new gateway site delivers a clean, organized and
functional look for MUSC, according to Linda Austin, M.D., director of
the Office of University Communications, who led a team of graphic
artists, Web and systems developers, plus campus leadership in
collaborating on this redesign project.
“We’ve created a dynamic, new home page that features changeable (flash
or slideshow) photos that are reflective of current news stories,
activities or progress affecting our MUSC faculty, staff and students,”
said Austin. “This change reflects new activities and progress that is
ongoing and stimulating.”
Austin worked with a Web redesign team that included Mary Mauldin,
Ed.D., director of the Center for Academic and Research Computing, and
CARC staff members Kristy Adams and Kathy Downey, regarding the
redesign. Josh Staples and John Dell of the Office of the Chief
Information Officer Information Services, also made important
contributions to programming needs of the site.
“The new MUSC Web site is the perfect example of individual team
members bringing their unique talents together to create a product that
far exceeds anything we could have developed on our own,” said Mauldin.
“We owe special thanks to those administrators, faculty, staff and
students who continually reviewed the Web site and provided invaluable
information. Although our tasks were sometimes challenging, working
closely with Dr. Linda Austin and the Web team kept the project fun. It
has been a real honor to work on this project and its success is a
result of Dr. Austin’s vision, creativity and leadership.”
Additionally, a tool bar highlights patient information linking users
to the MUSC Health.com Web pages. The MUSC directory provides a quick
listing of phone numbers and contact information categorized by name,
college or department. A separate A-Z Web registry allows users to
search an alphabetized and cross-reference list of campus Web sites,
other home pages, departments and programs registered in the campus Web
registry. The site also is designed to function properly across various
computer and browser configurations.
The right side of the front page identifies the Web pages of each of
MUSC’s six colleges—Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health
Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. Another menu item features
a brief slideshow highlighting both the institution and medical center.
Also displayed is a brief audio podcast featuring MUSC President Ray
Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., describing MUSC’s mission to improve health
disparities around the state.
At the home page’s center is a section called MUSC headline news, which
displays current campus news, information and announcements that convey
the institution’s tripartite missions of research, clinical and
academic information.
The home page redesign was created by Adams and Downey and based on a
concept by Greenberg. A critical piece of the redesign is the
deployment of a new search engine, which was programmed by Staples in
consultation with Dell and Sujit Kar, systems administrator for
Business Development & Marketing Services. The new Google search
application will be refined in the coming months and will allow users
easier access to information including clinical trials. The project
will be managed and maintained by the Office of University
Communications.
Throughout the design and approval process, Austin and the Web redesign
team sought continuous feedback and approval from MUSC leadership,
including the deans from each of MUSC’s six colleges. Valerie West,
Ed.D., associate provost for Educational Programs, conducted meetings
with students to improve the student pages.
“The new MUSC home Web page represents a great window to our
university,” said Perry V. Halushka, M.D., Ph.D., College of Graduate
Studies dean. “I am pleased to see how rapidly Dr. Austin was able to
get the new page constructed and functional. It will be an
extraordinary asset to our university.”
“I believe the new MUSC Web page will be the first, completely focused
institutional Web page we’ve had (the others were put together like
patch-work),” said Tom Basler, Ph.D., professor and director of MUSC
Libraries and Learning Resource Centers. “ It will take into
consideration the needs representing the hospital/clinical enterprise
but also allow for the expression of the colleges—both en masse and
individually. It will use new technologies, while making it easy
on us for the users—the public, the prospective students and eventually
the internal workers—staff, faculty and present students can reach all
the resources needed. It’s an excellent team under Linda, working
closely with Mary Mauldin’s Center for Academic & Research
Computing group to represent us all. It should be a grand
success!”
To see MUSC’s new Web site, visit http://www.musc.edu. To leave feedback about the new home page, visit http://www.musc.edu/feedback.htm.
Friday, Oct. 24, 2008
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