Barnard’s makeover has gone digital.
As students get acquainted with the new Diana student center, which opened this month after years of construction, Barnard’s Electronic Communications is currently in the process of revamping its entire website, according to Director of Electronic Communications Scott DiPerna.
The construction process was launched in January, and DiPerna said he hopes to have the new website up by the end of the year.
The current website has generally been criticized for being unorganized, technologically behind, and disjointed. The new site will be more streamlined and advanced, with a single content management system, or CMS, to simplify navigation.
The CMS will allow the website to have blogs, syndicated content like RSS feeds, event calendars and newsletters for departments, and easily updated faculty profiles. The content will allow for more multimedia features.
DiPena said that Barnard President Debora Spar has urged on the development. “She’s a driving force behind modernizing Barnard and especially bringing new technological advancement to the college. She really championed this project,” DiPerna said. He also added that Spar’s goal is to keep the Barnard legacy intact.
Headed by DiPerna and Barnard Vice President for Information Technology Carol Katzman, the CMS Advisory Committee, consisting of professors and administrators with an interest in the website’s reconstruction, will determine its aesthetics.
To keep students, faculty, and administration updated on the site’s progress, the Electronic Communications Department regularly updates a blog, barnardwebsite.wordpress.com. There, students can offer suggestions. DiPerna said, “I look at that thing daily to see what people have said. That, to me, is a perfect forum for having these types of conversations.”
Some students expressed a desire to make the site more interactive. “I would certainly enjoy a more personable or user-friendly interface which allows for interaction,” said Madalena Provo, BC ’12, class vice president. She also expressed interest in a personalized page for eBear—Barnard’s email and student profile system—but, in a Jan. 15 post on the Barnard website blog, DiPerna stressed that eBear—as a series of internal applications—will require a separate redesign.
A majority of the blog comments have come from alumnae and professors, and not students.
Charlie Dinkin, BC ’12, said, “I trust them to get it right without reading or commenting on a blog.”
Chemistry professor Christian Rojas expressed a desire for the redesign to make “accounting and tracking of budgets and budget expenditures more straightforward.”
And Elizabeth Castelli, Barnard professor and chair of the religion department, said, “I think that the main thing that I would like to see is ... more focus on intellectual work that’s going on at the college.”
There has also been some debate about preserving department websites with the new design.
Lesley Shrap, anthropology professor, commented, “I hope that you’ll let departments keep their web sites ... to help maintain the individual character of the department.”
DiPerna responded saying that non-participating departments “will not enjoy any of the benefits of CMS, which would be a loss not only for your department, but the College as a whole.”
He added, “There is obviously a balance to strike for academic departments: to clearly be part of the whole College, while maintaining the department’s distinct character. And it will obviously require some level of compromise from everyone, but ... I believe we will all be better for it.”
carly.silver@columbiaspectator.com
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