In “Facelifts for the Facebook Generation” published today in Inside Higher Ed, Andy Guess gives a good round-up of the web design trends in higher education:
As universities start to unveil the next generation of college Web sites, their efforts include a mix of approaches that tend to overlap. Lewis and other Web administrators note several trends:
* The Facebooking of college Web sites. Lewis said colleges were looking toward variations on social networking to keep in touch with students after they graduate and maintain databases for fund raising.
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* Showing, not telling. Simon said that focus groups expressed a preference for more “showing†and less “telling”: in other words, less text and more photos and video.
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* Blogs and more blogs. One way universities have found to more directly reach applicants is to find current students to blog about their lives on campus.
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* Bringing lectures to your iPod. With iTunes U, institutions can post audio and video content at customized portals for anyone to download for free; with YouTube, they can create their own pages with streaming video. More colleges and universities are creating their own presence at these sites with the hope of reaching out to students at online venues they frequent.* Leaving room for improvement. As redesigning Web sites becomes more of a multiyear, multistep ordeal, administrators are realizing that along with surface improvements, the content management systems underlying them need to be rebuilt from the ground up as well. As they design the foundations of their online platforms, the emphasis is on flexibility to make room for future additions. At Tepper, the system is equipped for features that aren’t even implemented yet, like allowing user comments and supporting tools for sharing and editing links, such as del.icio.us and Reddit. But for unforeseen improvements in the future, the database is robust enough for developers to build extra functionality — such as social networking.
Guess’s sources include Steven Lewis, HighEdWebDev conference committee chair (don’t forget to register today is you plan to attend, as it will cost you $100 more tomorrow) and Jason Simon (NC State).