NSIT Update

Recent I've learned that our new, beautiful website is still under complete NSIT control. To edit this page, the current Slate needs to send an e-mail to someone in Virginia for it to get put on her to-do list. That's opposed to this blog, where I can casually logon at any time and post content at will.

What's ironic about this lockdown is that NSIT just announced how quick, easy, and wonderful their new Web Express program is at helping Departments update and manage their websites.

Quote:

Since most department sites have a unique look and feel, Web Express uses custom-defined templates that make it easy to maintain a consistent design. Approved editors can easily make text updates, add images and links, and create new pages without advanced design or coding skills, thanks to a user-friendly interface offering formatting tools similar to Microsoft Word.

The only thing keeping SG away from this wonderful Web Express is that you'd have to substitute the word Student for Department, which apparently NSIT is not ok with. While the exact details are fuzzy, the current Slate says they don't want to give students access to Web Express.

I wouldn't find this such a big deal, except we have just spent a bunch of YOUR money building this new website. Except what we have now isn't a website, not in the way you and I think of the word. What we have is instead some sort of statue, a marble edifice which will remain static despite the passage of time and events. That's not a website (see bellow)

Its sad that in an effort to make SG more legitimate through professional design and site organization, we may have sacrificed the real power of the online content: the power to be relevant.


We can do better. For an idea of what the ol'interweb is capable of, observe:





-Scott