World-Wide Web Steering Committee
19 September 2002
Minutes

Present: Steve Blodgett, Steve Butts, Pete Gilbert, Joe Gregg, Steve Hirby, Michael Thorp

1. Blodgett presented some very attractive print mock-ups of key web pages. They were produced by Public Affairs to use in presentations to various groups including the Technology Advisory Committee, the Web Working Group, and Ad Staff. We agreed that the pictures were very nice.

2. Butts announced a meeting with the Technology Advisory Committee, tentatively scheduled for Monday, September 30. Hirby volunteered later to see if that could be changed to a time when Blodgett could attend. Gilbert will try to schedule a Web Working Group meeting for next week. Various committee members will give various members of Ad Staff a heads-up before that group discusses the proposed new look.

3. Still no word from Bambi. She emailed later to say that a family emergency had kept her out of touch and that she would respond to our questions/comments by Monday the 23rd.

4. Departmental pages
   Gilbert had previously emailed a link (http://www.lawrence.edu/committee/web-steer/deptpageguide.html) containing further links to our current dept page guidelines, previous W3SC discussions, and other institutions.

   Discussion centered around the differences between the typical department page (http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/biology/) and our standard "Courses of Study" pages (http://www.lawrence.edu/academics/biol/). Given that we previously agreed to "support the notion that the standard departmental pages in the current site will in the new site be replaced with pages developed by and addressing the specific need of individual departments and programs," how do we avoid the problem of having outdated or conflicting information on the site.

   Issues raised included:
   

   • Do we still maintain courses-of-study pages? If so, where?
   • How prescriptive can/should we be with dept pages? Is this a web decision or an academic affairs decision (aka, "Let Brian do it")?
   • How do course pages fit into the mix?
   • How might we convince departments to use the "canonical copy" while allowing them the freedom to expand or annotate or elucidate the sometimes vague catalog descriptions?
   • Can we/should we link from canonical pages to dept pages?
   • What exactly is on the Academics page?
   • Should we have pages for Course descriptions and major/minor requirements parallel to the department listing?
   • What navigation/content/linking standards should we have for dept pages?
   • Should we ask the enrollment committee dept web liaisons for their advice on this matter?
   • If academic depts can do what they want, why can't administrative offices?

   Nothing was decided but we had a nice time.

Respectfully (but not respectably) submitted,
Pete Gilbert
Secretary-of-the-day

20 September 2002