Maximizing the Impact of your Teaching Center Website

 Prof. Nira Hativa
Tel Aviv University
◦ Head, Center for the
Advancement of Teaching
 Kaleem Clarkson
Kennesaw State University
◦ Office Manager at CETL
◦ Concerts4Charity Founder
◦ Saroswebdesign.com
2011 Institute for New Faculty Developers June 22, 2011 * Atlanta,
Georgia * "Maximizing the Impact of the Teaching Center Website."
presented by Prof. Nira Hativa and Kaleem Clarkson

1. Identify which topics most interest
you
2. Developing your center’s web design
brief, content of website
3. Organizing your webpage design to
maximize its impact
4. Content Management Systems (CMS). 2011 Institute for New Faculty
Developers June 22, 2011 *
Atlanta, Georgia * "Maximizing the
Impact of the Teaching Center
Website." presented by Prof. Nira
Hativa and Kaleem Clarkson

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1. How to plan your website?
2. What sections and content
could be included in the
website?
3. How to organize the
structure and content of the
website?
4. What features help increase
user engagement?
5. How to allow staff to edit
webpages without additional
software? 2011 Institute for New Faculty

2011 InBstiigtut eD foirg N eiwn F acBuoltys ton

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1. Recently joined or about to
join an existing Center
2. Recently started or about to
start directing an existing
Center
3. Trying to get a Center started
4. Doing faculty development
work independently on
campus
2011 Institute for New Faculty

What is a web design brief?
It is a roadmap for client and designer as to the goals
and objectives and how to achieve them

a) Center’s organizational profile (About Us)
b) Main goals of your Center’s website
c) Target audiences, their needs, and how to serve
these needs [content of website]
d) Sections to highlight the Center [content of
website]
e) Resources for developing and maintaining your
website
f) Timeline for the completion of the website

Mission
Vision
History
Services
Products

What are they?
 Provide resources for academic teaching staff and
administrators to improve their teaching, research
initiatives and overall job performance
 Provide relevant helpful information to other target
audiences
 Highlight faculty who have shown great examples of
teaching
 Promote upcoming and past opportunities, activities,
news and events
What else?

What are the target audiences?
c1) Academic teaching staff: Faculty members,
adjuncts and TA’s
c2) Administrators
c3) Students
c4) Campus and worldwide audiences
What are their respective needs? How to
serve these needs? [content]

What are they?
c11: How to teach well?
c12: How to improve teaching using campus
resources?
c13: How to perform well in the academic role beyond
teaching?
c14: How to get promoted?
c15: Where to find campus resources and support?
Others?

To serve these needs present:
 General pedagogy: Teaching ideas/tips, teaching
guides
 Case descriptions: Stories of very successful
teachers
 Video clips of model teaching
What else?

To serve these needs present info about:
 Getting help in interpreting teaching evaluations (formative and
summative) and in acting on them
 Getting help in mentoring, consultation, using SoTL
 Getting info about campus orientations, workshops, symposia, and off
campus webinars, conferences, discussion groups, etc.
 Getting info about media resources: Journals, books, videos, Internet-based
resources
 Getting help in using technology to support class teaching:
Presentations, clickers, wikis, class management tools, etc.
What else?

To serve these needs present info about:
 Observing teaching-related campus rules
 Understanding campus institutions, administration,
and politics
 Understanding roles and responsibilities of the
academic teaching staff
What else?

To serve these needs provide:
 Ideas and guidance about promoting success in
faculty careers
 Info about preparing for P&T: Teaching portfolio
What else?

To serve these needs provide info about:
 Teaching center’s resources: Programs, services,
events, library, center’s team
 External resources: POD, other teaching centers
 Ombuds office
 Appeals
 Student Advisory
What else?

 Chairs development workshops
 Info about results of Student Evaluation of Teaching
(SETs) for each course and teacher
 Info about summary of results of the SETs for each
academic unit and for the campus as a whole
 Info about results of teaching/SETs related studies
done on campus
What Else?

To serve these needs provide info about:
 Teaching on campus
 Results of the SETs that students are permitted to
read
 Introductory teaching resources for Graduate
Teaching Students
What else?

 General information for worldwide audiences
 List of journals
 List of conferences
 List of comprehensive resources
What else?

d1:About us
d2: Activities/programs
d3: Services
d4: Teaching guides/tips/handling problems
d5: Awards and grants
d6: Teaching policies
d7: Results and statistics of SETs, other teaching surveys,
other studies on teaching done on campus
d8: Upcoming events
d9: Resources
d10: Home
What else?

 Mission and Values
 History
 Staff
 Advisory board
 Campus partners
 Newsletter, listserv
 Confidentiality policy
 Annual report
 Employment opportunities
 Location and hours
 Contact us
What else?

 Orientations, workshops, seminars, discussion
groups on campus [on-line registration]
 Personal consultation
 Mentorship
 Teaching evaluation (formative and summative) by
teaching center’s staff, self, students & peers
 Support for technology in teaching
 Program for teaching certificate
 Programs for new faculty/TAs, for international
faculty/TAs, for adjunct/part-time faculty
What else?

 Analysis of multiple-choice tests/exams
 Helping faculty prepare technology-based teaching
items
 Services for departments, programs and schools
 Recording of classes & Internet broadcasting
What else?

 Teaching guides
 Teaching tips
 Ways and means for handling problems
 Theoretical summaries: Teaching-related research
results
What else?

 Faculty Award selection process and application
◦ Minnesota State University Mankato;
http://www.mnsu.edu/cetl/grantsawards/
◦ Cornell University
http://www.cte.cornell.edu/faculty/facultygrants.html
 List of awards-winning teachers with photos or videos
◦ University of Central Florida
http://www.fctl.ucf.edu/FacultySuccess/AwardWinners/
◦ Florida State University
http://learningforlife.fsu.edu/ctl/explore/2010teachExcellenceSeri
es.cfm
 Grants for participation in teaching-promotion activities
What else?

 Forms for writing syllabus, for other teaching-related
procedures
 Campus policies for teacher behaviors
 Ethics in teaching
What else?

 Results of statistics on SETs
 Results of other teaching surveys
 Results of other studies on teaching done on campus

 Orientations, workshops, seminars, discussion
groups, guest lecturers, conferences, symposia
What else?

 Teaching ideas/tips, teaching guides
 Case descriptions: Stories of very successful
teachers
 Videotapes of superb teaching
 List of website of other teaching centers
 List of teaching-related journals, books, videotapes,
articles and essays
 Library with sources of the latter list
What else?

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A. B. C. D. E.
A. 1-3
B. 4-6
C. 7-10
D. 11-15
E. 16 or more

 Human Resources
 Financial
 Commitment

 Administration provided date
 Start of the new semester
 Special Event

Making Decisions

3a. Avoiding bad web design
3b. Deciding on site-map and web content
3c. Organizing content with wireframes and sketches
3d. Resources for basic design tips and principles

Don’t laugh at me… I tried really hard!

Ironically, this site is a great
resource for designers to
learn what NOT to do.
They have been ranking
webpages for 15 years and
are the #1 Google-ranked
page when searching for
examples of bad design.

#3 on Impact the of the list: Teaching www.Center
siphawaii.com
Should Hativa I and say Kaleem more?
Clarkson

 Prioritize navigation, pages and features based on
your design brief.
 Try to limit your main menu items to 6.
 Revisit your menu items and content statistics after
a year has passed.

 In design, wireframes are useful because they help
you and your client focus on important structuring
issues before considering detail-oriented challenges.

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1. Below Average
2. Average
3. Above Average
4. Awesome

 Yes, yes and yes.
 “I’m here to tell you that the artistic quality of your
sketches is not the point. The real goal of sketching is
functional. It’s about generating ideas, solving problems,
and communicating ideas more effectively with others”.
–Mike Rohde, A List Apart
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sketching-the-visual-thinking-
power-tool/
 Excellent Wireframing resources
◦ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/01/35-excellent-wireframing-
resources/
◦ http://www.wireframeshowcase.com/
◦ 960 Grid - http://960.gs/

 www.alistapart.com
 www.webdesignerdepot.com
 www.smashingmagazine.com
 www.webpagesthatsuck.com
 http://960.gs/

 Search Engine Optimization
◦ Search Engine Optimization is a process to get your site listed at the top of the Google
search list.
 Newsletter signup widget
◦ Vertical Response – free to nonprofits and gov’t agencies.
◦ iContact.com
 Integrating Social Networks
◦ Facebook
◦ Twitter
◦ RSS Feeds
 Google Analytics
◦ Provides you with website statistics.
 Google Translator
◦ Helps translate pages into different languates.
 Faculty Blog
◦ A blog where faculty can post stories about their teaching experiences.
◦ http://hetl.org/

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1. Not important
2. Somewhat important
3. Important
4. Highly important
5. Extremely important

 A content management system (CMS) is the
collection of procedures used to manage work flow
in a collaborative environment. These procedures
can be manual or computer-based.

 Updating of content without any knowledge of web
design languages such as HTML, CSS, PHP or
JavaScript
 Allow for a large number of people to contribute to and
share stored data
 Control access to data, based on user roles (defining
which information users or user groups can view, edit,
publish, etc.)
 Aid in easy storage and retrieval of data
 Reduce time commitments
 Improve the ease of report writing
 Improve communication between users
 Reduced costs

Wordpress – The most popular used CMS for
personal blogs. Easiest to use but limited
Drupal – The second highest rated CMS due to the
flexibility. Mostly used for enterprise sites and
institutions.
Joomla – The second most popular CMS. Similar to
Wordpress where it is easy to use but limited in
functionality.
 2010 Open Source CMS Awards
https://www.packtpub.com/open-source-awards-home

1. Identify what topics interest you the
most*
2. Developing your center’s web design
brief, content of website
3. Organizing your webpage design to
maximize its impact
4. Content Management Systems (CMS).

Maximizing the Impact of your Teaching Center Website

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