"Meet the Staff" Series - Daphne Hunt, Director

Web Services would like to share with the community a bit about our team such as what we do, "a day in the life", and other interesting things about the make-up of our team members. Each Web Services member contributes something very important (and very different) to the overall team. To start off with, here is a little bit about myself! -Daphne

Full name: Daphne Jo Hunt

Title: Director of Web Services
Length of time in Web Services at Tarleton: 8 years
Top three areas of expertise: Web strategy, web team/project management, graphic design
Topic Interests: Same as expertise, with additional interests in video production, photography, and web analytics
Favorite thing about my job: Working with such a talented group of staff members each and every day!
Favorite hobby: Making crafts! I have a craft room at home and have recently made hair bows, a fall wreath, and a "fairy garden" for my bird bath.

A "Day in the Life":

1. Check homepage for any out-of-date information and make sure important information gets posted. (Tarleton's homepage is my "baby" that I must keep nurtured.)
2. Check and respond to emails throughout the day (which as you know can take a while here at Tarleton!)
3. As the day rolls along, check in with all the members of my team to see how they are doing. Since we are all in the same office area, it doesn't take too long to figure out what's going on!
4. Go to meetings. We love to collaborate and share information with other departments, so I do spend a lot of my time in meetings. Anywhere from 2-4 hours a day on average. I meet with Marketing & Communications, Information Technology Services, and many other teams on campus. I get to meet a lot of people in my position!
5. Monitor my team's projects & tasks on Asana. We enter all of our projects and tasks to this system in order to keep track of and prioritize all of our outstanding projects and tasks. At any given time, my team can have over 100 pending tasks in the queue as a whole! We each get several tasks done each day so we are constantly making headway.
6. Develop strategies for improving our web presence and for improving how we communicate changes to campus. Making policies and guidelines for the web is one thing, but communicating those things to campus is just as important. I also give guidance to my staff about how to communicate to our colleagues, because I believe strongly in transparency, respectfulness, timeliness, and reinforcement.
7. Give feedback and advice on projects and tasks. I help to ensure we are still moving in the right direction and at an appropriate speed to get things done.
8. Team meetings: We usually have an official team meeting one or two times a week to discuss major projects and other topics that have come up during the week. We also have several "unofficial" team meetings during the week as needed - if nothing else, to just be able to share a joke and keep everyone in high spirits on a stressful day!
9. Design graphics such as homepage highlights and advertising banners. I love graphic design so I section off a sliver of my day to work on these types of tasks.

Southern Hospitality and Hannon Hill

Last week, I went to Atlanta for the annual Cascade Server Users Conference hosted by Hannon Hill.  In true southern form, we received the best in hospitality, and in true Cascade Server User form, everyone contributed in some way to the learning of all the other conference attendees.

In fact, the XSLT guru Jason Aller (to whom I bow down to with great respect, since I program in the XSLT language to make Cascade work), from University of California, Davis - School of Law, gave Tarleton State University kudos for our content management procedures in his presentation "In Pursuit of the Grand Unified Template." Consistency is important to provide a professional marketing and communications tool. If there are deviations from the branding, the style and tone, they look like mistakes and have the potential to push away our constituents.

Jason Aller and Karole Schroeder after his presentation "In Pursuit of the Grand Unified Template"

During another presentation by Fran Zablocki, Strategist for mStoner, called "Information Architecture and User Experience: The Journey, The Destination, The Return Trip," I could only imagine Morgan, our Web Content Specialist, smiling wide-eyed as she consumed exciting new information at some points and nodding her head in agreement on others concerning many of the strategies used to make content work on a web page if she had been with me.

Sometimes it feels good to hear that others are thinking about things the same way we are because while we may be working on the technical aspects, very rarely do people outside our occupations truly understand the trials we go through to improve web design to increase usability for all our constituents. Conferences like these both teach us and build us up as a community. I appreciate what Hannon Hill does to constantly bring us all together working towards the benefit of all.

-Karole

Student Employee of the Semester for Summer 2014!

We awarded the Student Employee of the Semester for Summer 2014 last night, and the award went to Maria Guillen!

Left to Right: Daphne Hunt, Maria Guillen, Morgan Hammond

Maria is a very hard-working student, taking much initiative to get work done for the College of Business Administration (COBA) on her own. She is skilled at organizing information on the web and collecting student testimonials for COBA's website. Maria works with faculty in order to get information needed for the college's websites. She will be graduating with her B.S. in Computer Information Systems in December, therefore moving on to new horizons. We are going to miss her!

We also had the opportunity to take a group photo of all the Web Services employees last night. I'm so proud of this team and all of their accomplishments and talents. Every single person is valued and appreciated in this office and I am so looking forward to working with this team this year!

Left to right: Josh Roelofs, Maria Guillen, Danielle Dunigan, Katie Taylor, Silvia Fuentes, Karole Schroeder, Tori Jones, Morgan Hammond, Daphne Hunt, Jennifer Kiggins, Ernesto (Ernie) Martinez

-Daphne :)

Tarleton Mobile App

Web Services, Information Technology Services (ITS), and the Digital Media Advisory Committee have been working for several months to prepare and implement a new mobile app for Tarleton.

The app is created by Ellucian, the company which also brings us MyGateway (Luminis), Ducktrax (Student Self-Service), and Banner. Becky Gray, CIO and Executive Director of Information Technology Services at Tarleton, saw a demo of the app at a conference during spring of 2013. Because Tarleton did not have a primary app for the institution AND there was a need to provide a mobile-friendly way to access student services, Becky investigated Ellucian's app further and made the decision to purchase.

The Digital Media Advisory Committee began discussing the app's look and feel as well as content to be placed in the app during the spring of 2014. One of the deciding factors about content was whether or not it is "mobile-friendly".  Currently, there is no "free" mobile-friendly interface for Blackboard, so the decision was made to not link to Blackboard from the app. However, since TexanSync already had a mobile-friendly interface, we decided to include a link to that website.

We also included links to student email, Tarleton's news and events, social media, emergency contacts, campus maps and directory, athletics, and several more items. And of course, students are able to access their grades and schedules from the app as well!

-Daphne Hunt

From a Student's Perspective
Tori Jones, Assistant Intern in Web Services:

From my perspective this app has really made my life a little bit easier. My favorite part of the app is when you click on courses - it shows you what courses you have, what time they are at and even has them all laid out in a schedule. You are also able to access your grades in classes from past semesters, which I found was really convenient because sometimes I like to look back and see what my grades are looking like as a whole, and being able to see that I had a B in that class, or an A in another class really helps things stay organized.

Another thing that the app comes in handy for on a student's perspective is the link to TexanSync. Being a student worker for Web Services, as well as a Residential Leader, I use TexanSync quite a bit. Having that direct access from the app to TexanSync allows me to have access to important things that I need to know and event times with a touch of a button, literally.

As a Residential Leader, there comes times that call for emergency contacts needing to be reached. With the new app, not only are the University Police Department's number available at the click of a button, but the Erath County Sheriff's Office, and Stephenville Police Department numbers are programmed in as well.

This app was something special for Tarleton that was long awaited, with all the new technologies coming into play, it was just a countdown to when we would finally get this app. It's got a really good look to it, and not only that it's extremely easy to use - from having links to student email, TexanSync, Emergency Contacts, and everything in-between, it's definitely a must have!

New Workshop: Making Updates in Cascade Server

Web Services invites you to attend our August Workshop:
"Using Cascade Server to Make Timely Web Updates,"
led by Morgan Hammond, Web Content Specialist for the Office of Web Services.

The workshop will be @ 3:45P on August 15, immediately following the Cascade Training.  It will be held in the Library Training Center, which is accessible from the new Library Commons area on the main floor of the Dick Smith Library. 

This workshop will allow you to spend an hour making your web updates alongside other web maintainers and Web Services Employees. You can ask questions and get one-on-one help with those hard to make edits. This is a great way to get out of your office and away from distractions to make those much needed updates!

Should I attend this workshop?

Yes:

1. If you regularly write and make updates to a Tarleton site, you will learn about the latest updates to Cascade Server, the effective use of Cascade tools and get solutions to common problems you have struggled with over and over while making updates to your site.
2. If you have been tasked as a Web Maintainer and already attended training this workshop is an easy way get a jump start on those edits, or build your confidence.

No:

1. If you have not already attended training, this workshop will leave you with more questions than answers.
2. If you want a course in HTML writing, Web Services does not provide training or courses in HTML.
3. If you want to redesign or change the layout of your pages, please contact Web Services to schedule a consultation.

Take Aways

While our one hour training sessions are a great start, we realize that most learn from doing. You will be able to build your confidence, get advice from the experts, and be able to make updates faster after attending this one hour workshop.

Cascade Training

If you are interested in attending a training session, you can see a list of scheduled training sessions on our website. To RSVP to a scheduled training, send an email to mhammond@tarleton.edu. Please be sure to have your immediate supervisor request your access to Cascade and fill out the Cascade Server User Agreement prior to your training.

#MondayFunday: Cappuccino Lays

In order to make our Monday morning a little more bearable, I brought in the new Cappuccino Lays chips to do an office taste-test.

The only person who really liked the chips was the same person that does not like potato chips OR coffee. Go figure!

-Daphne

Other universities in the media

(Photo from nicolasconnault)

Web Services' staff is tasked with evaluating Tarleton's web pages and vendor-contracted web pages/technology for accessibility, copyright, and security issues. This is a tedious yet necessary responsibility that the university is required by law to perform. As we have learned more about these federal requirements, we have over time made our evaluations more stringent.

We have observed the ramifications of what happens when a university ignores its obligation to abide Section 508/TAC 206, U.S. Copyright Law, and TAC 202. We do not want similar actions taken against Tarleton, which is why we adamantly check our websites, software, and other technology for compliance.

Doing these evaluations does take some time. Sometimes I would rather be working on web graphics or designing web layouts. However, if we do not take the time to evaluate, a reprimand (or worse) is just inevitable.

The following are examples of universities who have been reprimanded/sued/reported for not complying with accessibility requirements. I think you will be surprised!

• Web Accessibility: Required, Not Optional (mentions Northwestern University, New York University, and Florida State University)
  (University Business, 2011.)
• Advocates for the Blind Sue Arizona State U. Over Kindle Use
  (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2009.)
• Penn State Accused of Discriminating Against Blind Students
  (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2010.)

Here is an example of a situation where the owner of non-popular blog was sued for copyright infringement on one image. And no, universities can not claim "fair use" on images posted on it's public website - they must follow the same rules.

• How using Google images can cost you $8,000
  (PR Daily, 2013)

Due diligence is the key here. And even though these are requirements by law, shouldn't we at least feel morally obligated to provide equal rights to services and prevent theft? I think so!

-Daphne