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Communication Committee
 
Responsibilities: The responsibilities of the Communications Committee are the production and distribution of the WASSA newsletter; Web site management; electronic mail list management; and the solicitation, evaluation, and annual meeting award recognition of WASSA member Web sites.

Chair: The chair of the Communications Committee will be selected from its membership and appointed by the President, after consulting with the Executive Committee.

Membership: Members of the Communications Committee will include the Secretary, and at least five other members appointed by the President, with the terms of two members expiring each year.

2009 Web Site Awards

Each year the Communications Committee presents the best Web site award at the annual meeting. To have your site considered for the award, send your Web address, along with any comments you’d like to make about it, to Mely Fitzgerald, mely.fitzgerald@ucr.edu. Please submit your Web address by Friday, August 14, 2009.

The Web sites are evaluated using 4 criteria: Design, Navigation, Content, and Interactivity.

1. Design
  • Appearance: Is it attractive and appealing to most visitors? Too busy? Too bland?
  • Graphics: Are they clear and attractive? Do they contribute to the purpose and understanding of the page? Are they excessive or distracting?
  • Layout: Is there understandable positioning of buttons and graphics? Is text readable? Is the layout continued from one screen to the next so the user can reasonably anticipate where buttons and navigation bars will be?
  • Special features: Is there anything that creates student interest and keeps them coming back to your site (news and informational updates, new programs, bulletin boards, incentives for taking courses, etc.)?
  • Are fonts readable, attractive, and properly sized?
2. Navigation and Functionality
  • Organization (links, etc.): Is there an intuitive feel for the visitor?
  • Is the site layout easy to understand?
  • Does the site have a table of contents or site map?
  • Are the main functions of the site easy to find from the home page?
  • Sidebars: Are they consistent? Do they help navigation?
  • Search function: Can you search the site? Do searches yield relevant, current information?
  • Path options: Can you navigate easily from page to page? Is it easy to get back to the home page or the top of a page?
  • Download times: Is the loading time excessive? Does the design slow the site? Is the site responsive to the speed of various computers? Do images load much more slowly than text?
3. Content
  • Does the site appropriately adapt and enhance information? Is the site interactive? Or does the site recreate printed materials?
  • Is there effective, accessible course and activity information that is updated regularly?
  • Is the content interesting and valuable to the visitor? Are the pages easy to read? Do topics follow a logical sequence?
  • Is information updated regularly?
4. Interactivity
For example, can students:
  • Register
  • Pay fees
  • Search for information
  • Send an e-mail request for information
  • Complete a survey
  • Participate in opinion gathering and sampling
In evaluating your own Web site, consider these benchmarks:
  1. How many clicks does it take to find your site from your institution’s home page?
  2. How high on the list does your Web site appear in a Google or Yahoo search using key words like summer sessions, summer travel study programs, summer programs for high school students.
  3. How long does it take to download and access your site? This can be a function of the site’s design and graphics.
  4. Once on your home page, how long does it take for a potential student to find important information about your program, like:
    • Your fees.
    • Add/drop policies and dates
    • All the classes in a discipline (e.g., English, Psychology)
    • Grading policies
    • Parking and other ways to access the campus
    • An e-mail address for obtaining additional information
    • How to enroll online or download an application form. How up to date the information on your site is, and how often it’s updated
    • A search engine that returns useful results
  5. To what extent can a student:
    • Create a short-list of classes dealing with similar academic subject matter (e.g., all classes dealing with some aspect of history)
    • Find classes offered at a certain time during the day or evening, or offering a particular range of credit, like all 1-, 2-, 3, 4-, or 5-unit courses
    • See a list of available courses that are oversubscribed at other times of the year
    • Find information on fulfilling institutional education requirements, like general or specific degree requirements


Web Site Award recipients
2009 Oregon State University
2008 University of Alaska Fairbanks
2007 University of California, Santa Cruz
2006 University of Alaska Fairbanks
2005 University of Alaska Fairbanks
2004 University of California, Santa Cruz
2003 University of California, Santa Cruz
2002 University of California, Santa Cruz


Western Association of Summer Sessions Administrators
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