Why get an “award-winning” university website?

Getting one of the numerous awards for your last website redesign won’t make you rich.

But, showing your VP (and the rest of the campus community) that your redesign team has built an “award-winning” website will be priceless — especially at budget-discussion time.

I know, I know: the biggest reward comes from happy users and a pass grade at the Section 508 Test.

However, some third-party validation does come handy from time to time.

So, if you’ve just completed your redesign (or if you do so before June 1, 2005), you might want to enter in the 9th annual international WebAward Competition organized by The Web Marketing Association, which has just announced the call for entries in a press release:

Colleges and universities represent an important category in the WebAward competition, and the Web Marketing Association will again be honoring the Best University Web site of 2005. The deadline for entry is June 1, 2005.

“The university industry must very competitive when it comes to Web development. Today’s students grew up with computers and it defines how they interact,” said William Rice, President of the Web Marketing Association. “Universities and colleges can benefit from an independent evaluation of their online efforts that the award judges provide. That is the goal of the WebAward Competition – to provide a forum to recognize the people and organizations responsible for developing some of the most effective websites on the Net today. Winning a WebAward also provides a great opportunity to market your success to the outside world.”

Websites will be judged on “design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, navigation and ease of use.”

Here is the WebAward Competition entry form.

And, if you’re more the “award-giving” type, you can try to become a judge as the Web Marketing Association is “looking for individuals who have direct experience designing and managing web sites” with “an in-depth understanding of the current state-of-the-art in web site design and technology and the objectivity to score entries according to a predefined set of criteria.”

The judging will be done online in July and August of 2005.

Here is the judge application form.

Please note that I’m not associated with the Web Marketing Association. I don’t get a winning ticket for my college website (that won’t be redesigned before June 1st anyway) and don’t pretend to be award-judge material.

But, let me know if you decide to enter the competition (especially if you win — the results will be announced in September) by posting a comment or sending me an email at karine@collegewebeditor.com