District collaborates to tackle complaints concerning ‘disgraceful’ online presence

The much-anticipated Website Redesign Project launched Thursday, Oct. 10 at San Jose City College.

The district office, SJCC, Evergreen Valley College and the Workforce Institute are all running on different web platforms that are not integrated and do not meet the needs of their constituents, according to the district website.

“We passed a bond measure and we specifically talked about revamping our entire information technology infrastructure, and one of the great things that is allowable under the bond measure (2010) is the revamping of our website,” said Rita Cepeda, San Jose Evergreen Community College District Chancellor.

Cepeda said the district’s image was a critical concern, both internally and externally.

“The big complaint came from our board of trustees, who said we have to have a better tool to represent our district,” Cepeda said. “They called it a disgrace basically, that we needed to have something that was more representative of the content and talent of our district.”

She said the district is looking to improve every aspect of each website.

“Now we have the resources to do it, and we have a process that will include advice committees from each of the colleges, the Workforce Institute and the district office,” Cepeda said.

Business Services Supervisor Seher Awan spoke about the advice committees in more detail.

“Our committee is composed of eight people; there’s two students, two faculty members, two classified individuals and two administrators,” Awan said. “That committee will work with EVC’s committee to create the sitemap, how the pages should be laid out, all of the design aspects, and once the design aspects are completed, we will start working with all of the individual departments on campus to build content.”

Cepeda said the committee was selected through a competitive editing process to engage in this type of work.

“We’ll have this beautiful tool, but the the issue then is how will we keep it current?” Cepeda said.

Previously, Awan said it was the priority of the college to hire a webmaster.

“We’re actually not in need of a webmaster because we’re going to be using SharePoint,” Awan said. “This new technology will allow each department to update its website so each department will be able to have live information and more control and access … the duty will be spread out throughout the campus through each designated person who the department feels wants to update its website.”

Awan said the redesign project also includes updates which will allow for each website to be easy to use on a mobile device.

“It needs to be changed so that when you minimize it, it won’t get all distorted where you have to scroll to see something,” Awan said. “It will actually minimize so you can still see the menu, and it actually works as an app on the phone so it will definitely be something that is more user-friendly.”

Cepeda said she met with a communications consultant who told her that the district needed a strategic communications plan in order for them to improve communication with their constituents.

“As an outside expert, she looked at them (the websites) and she didn’t even think we were related so she had concerns about grouping the four websites together,” Cepeda said. “She had concerns about every single website and their navigability, their professional presentation, their content and the recentness of the content.”

Cepeda said the Strategic Communications Plan identified the websites as the number one vehicle for both communicating and conducting services with all key constituents including current students, future students, faculty and staff, alumni, the press, donors and the local community.

“Eighty-five percent of our communication with our target audience is going to be dependent on our website so that’s why it’s really important that we make sure our website is up to par,” said Sam Ho, the Website Redesign Project coordinator. “We need to make sure that people will want to revisit our website and get to know us better.”

Cepeda also said that most students will make decisions about whether or not to attend within seconds of having looked at the website.

“It is my hope that come March, we will have what we call fine architecture in the website,” Cepeda said. “After that, it’s really going to be up to us and to you as students, faculty and staff to keep the content current, attractive and informative.”

Ho said the revamp is one of the biggest projects that the district is excited about right now, and having student input along the way is really helpful.

“We’ll have a great celebration by March 19, the day of the closeout meeting, and we want everyone to be able to say they had a part in it,” Ho said. “Our audience, especially students; current, future and alumni, they deserve the best from this district … they want to be proud of the district, and one of the ways we can keep them proud is to keep them well informed.”