Why Redesign Your Site?

Academia is all about the free exchange of ideas. This is just one of the reasons why it's so important for university departments to have a strong presence online - the web is the ultimate platform for sharing information. This page spells out what I feel are the top five reasons why every department should have a great academic website, as well as what role a website can play for your department.

5 Reasons to Have a Great Academic Website

Create an online academic presence for your department

More effectively communicate updates and events at your department with faculty, students, and the academic community at large

Give your professors a space on the web to share their research with peers

Highlight student research and activities to create a sense of community in your department

Recruit students and faculty who today consider the web their first point of contact with potential departments

What a Great Academic Website can do for your Department

Proclaim the vitality and importance of your department

It's almost hard to believe today, but the world wide web was designed to promote academic connections. Which is why it's unfortunate to find that leading academic departments often let their websites slide by failing to update content and ignoring the possibilities of a professional website. Your faculty develop ground-breaking new research projects; your department offers exciting new courses; you schedule important conferences and weekly colloquium... Content gets old and outdated quickly. A business would never think of advertising old sales and promotions. They have employees devoted to keeping their website fresh and exciting. Yet academic departments can't afford full time web support, and they often forget that they too are in the business of "selling" themselves: to prospective students and faculty, to the larger academic community, and to the public. Top-notch academic departments need a web presence that reflects the kind of invigorating and important scholarship that they do.

Promote your faculty

Now that the web has become a ubiquitous presence on campuses, both students and faculty go to the web first to get information on departments, to look for colleagues and their research, to download academic papers, and to make professional contacts. Professors who have personal websites often make important connections over the web. Even a simple one-page site for each of your faculty members could greatly expand their visibility in the academic community, promoting their research and your department.

Improve the efficiency of your department

An academic website has to be functional as well as promotional. Many basic academic websites list faculty names, research blurbs, and phone numbers. But the web can be far more useful than that. Do you have flyers and brochures announcing the courses you offer or the colloquium series for the year? Do your faculty members have research papers they would like to share with the academic community? Would you like to easily communicate concentration/major requirements with undergraduates and tell graduate students how to apply to your department? All of these resources can be available online - with a "printer-friendly" version available at the click of a button.

A great academic website is more than a phone #, a fax #, and a snail mail address! It's an extension of your department, available to the entire academic community.