BCC Web Report
Summary
Since the end of 2004, a series of recommendations to develop, maintain, and technically troubleshoot Berkeley City College’s website, and requests for more on-campus control of the site, were made by Berkeley City College’s Web Group. These recommendations and requests were made through various communications channels. For example, recommendations and problems regarding the college’s website were brought by the college’s president to district executive meetings; by Dr. Craig Hadden, the college’s late vice president of instruction, to PCCD vice presidents’ and technology committee meetings; and by members of Berkeley City College’s Web group to Peralta District Web Committee meetings. PCCD’s Web Committee last met in spring 2006. Committee recommendations in 2005-06 with regard to using approximately $75,000 in district technology money to employ 20 hour a week, on-campus college web professionals were largely ignored in favor of hiring two “floating” faculty members to provide sporadic Web training for faculty at all campuses.
The result is that college coordination of web activities, technical maintenance, troubleshooting, and website monitoring and development remains highly fragmented, with no one in charge of the website at the college level. Attempts at keeping the site viable are made by the college’s Web Group, but these efforts are fragmented. Two faculty members and a staff member with technical expertise currently provide assistance to BCC faculty and staff who wish to develop and post web pages. They are granted access through their department chairs or through their college administrator, and again, as a final step, through the District IT Department’s Help Desk.
Meanwhile, both college-level and district coordination in the form of policies, procedures, and protocol for website development, updating, maintenance, and technical troubleshooting, do not exist in written form. This is highly unusual in a marketplace where community colleges employ one or more professionals whose on-campus responsibilities are exclusively dedicated to all aspects of website development and maintenance, including content coordination, accountability, programming, and technical troubleshooting. At many colleges, all employees must follow clearly stated policies and protocols before a Web- master can consider content submitted for posting.
Berkeley City College’s Web Group has joined with other Peralta colleges on PCCD’s Web Committee, to address and communicate the issues mentioned herein. However, they continue to be largely ignored, with little or no communication to the colleges from PCCD, and with no regularly scheduled PCCD Web committee meetings to address and resolve the many Web problems which now exist.
Observations and recommendations made in this report are largely the result of several endeavors. An informal, on-line survey conducted among BCC’s college community was held in fall 2006. Other actions included communication, over time, by BCC Web Group members with other Peralta college Web committees, to discuss common needs and issues that confront the campuses. This report documents the issues which still remain at BCC, and possibly at the other Peralta colleges, after more than two years.
On-Site Management of college Web environments.
Research for this report shows that Berkeley City College and its sister colleges require on-campus individuals, trained in Web design, programming, and technical troubleshooting, to:
• Develop the college’s Web environment into a synergistic whole.
• Continually test, troubleshoot and make recommendations for developing the site.
• Provide ongoing support for faculty, staff, and management in creating, developing and
testing Web pages, links, site updates, and technical trouble-shooting.
• Serve as liaison between campus and District offices with regard to Web issues.
In addition to this:
• Since fall 2005, members of BCC’s Web Group have agreed that a college website does not optimally function under central control away from the campus. Community colleges employ on-campus Web professionals to coordinate, develop, anticipate, and troubleshoot technical and programming problems which regularly occur in a Web environment. BCC’s Multimedia Arts faculty and individuals who have developed web- sites for corporations and public universities have suggested that Peralta review sites such as Syracuse University, Dillard University, Yale University, Diablo Valley College, Raychem, and Santa Rosa Junior College, to study effective web-site structure and coordination.
• All requests for Web assistance at the college level now go through the Peralta District’s Information Technology Office Help Desk. Faculty and staff have observed that the current Web environment often is not user friendly, even to Web-savvy individuals. Depending on the degree and complexity of the technical or programming problem, it may take hours, days, or weeks for college-site problems to be solved once they reach an already overburdened District IT Department. At times, the problems are never resolved. One can spend hours on the phone, or with back-and-forth e-mail messages, to resolve them. Individuals who attempt to pursue a solution to these problems sometimes take hours away from their regularly assigned duties to do so.
• The website often experiences technical problems. It operates on several programming languages, including ASP and HTML. Colleges currently cannot change web page code if it is necessary. Colleges need access to web code to troubleshoot and repair “bugs” which hinder smooth operation of campus websites. Even though ASP is the primary programming language, its foundation language is HTML, and it is at this level that code must be changed to address certain problems. A college Web professional should be the first-level resolver of such campus web problems. They also should incorporate, develop, and maintain a variety of e-communication genres to reach college and district target audiences. Full authority to access and change code on demand, to change and move files to folders, direct access to the college home page, to change programming, images, text, and so forth, should be vested at the campus level, not with PCCD.
• The current Web interface and template do not universally function with all web browsers to allow uploading or changing work on the Web. The current interface only works fully with Internet Explorer 6.0 or older Explorer browsers. It does not work with Explorer 7.0, the current browser used by Peralta colleges. Those who have access to their college Web environment have found that it does not function with Firefox or Safari (Macintosh) browser interfaces. Many BCC faculty and staff use Macintosh computer platforms and have problems creating and updating Web pages. When Macintosh faculty or staff users attempt to enter and post or change pages in a Safari or Firefox browser, they cannot do so. Photographs cannot be posted and the calendar does not function. Web access for programming, web page creation, and updating, should function on both Mac and PC operating systems. Each campus should house a dedicated computer and server to facilitate on-site Web coordination. Any new Web environment must be designed to serve knowledgeable users (FTP) and those with less experience (templates), and must continually meet college needs. Any new Web interface should be accessible and fully function with all Web browsers.
• Faculty, staff, and departments who do not know how to create Web pages or post on the Internet, cannot easily do so.
It was mentioned at one spring 2006 District Web Committee meeting that the District Academic Senate (DAS) made recommendations about hiring faculty members to conduct training. However, faculty and staff at BCC observe that the current training structure does not meet the college’s daily need for on-site assistance, nor does it provide resources to manage, develop, and troubleshoot campus web environments. Fragmented or non-existent processes, with little shared governance and planning, have created a patchwork solution to on-campus web coordination, development, and technical troubleshooting.
Other college stakeholders—faculty, staff, students, and administrators—were not consulted about the “training solution” and attempted to make other, more college-friendly recommendations. The latter were largely ignored. Members of the college community asked why a district-wide Web needs survey was not conducted BEFORE district decisions were made by a small group of officials and other “representatives” not involved with Web problems at the campus level. They also asked why internal stakeholder groups other than the DAS were not consulted.
While faculty trainers employed by District IT provided several two-hour training sessions district wide and on several campuses, these were not, nor do they continue to be, adequate to regularly connect with BCC’s 42 full-time, and 130 parttime faculty members; 42 classified staff, and six administrators.
Roughly 90 percent of the college population remains ignorant of how to use the college’s website to develop pages, and many within that population has little time to learn. They must wait for training appointments or must attend a professional day training session. The few hours’ training they receive at those sessions is inadequate, since what they learn is quickly forgotten. BCC multimedia arts faculty who teach Web design, and computer information systems faculty, who teach web programming, have observed that the learning curve for Web training takes several months of sustained instruction. Faculty and staff training manuals also were poorly designed.
Finally, when BCC set aside funds last fall to employ a temporary Web person, the position was denied by PCCD’s Human Resources Department. The result of not having anyone in that position is further undermining the functionality of the college’s website.
• Permission to access the site must be granted to faculty and staff by approval of a college administrator, then the faculty or staff member must request permission for access a second time from the District IT office. Formally, no one at the college level coordinates “administrative access.” The college, not the district or consultants, should have full authority to determine who, under what circumstances, and the degree to which individuals have access. Informally, BCC faculty and others now go through their administrators to gain access, and when their access request is approved, they contact District IT for access to their college website.
Other faculty and staff comments:
“Students should be able to access an instructor’s web page from the homepage or department page. However the myvista.peralta is not very user friendly and I have no idea how to access the page without a password. I would like to use this as part of a hybrid for my course. This is the second semester that I have created a web page with the course info but am unable to access.” (Note: This statement illustrates a lack of knowledge of what is and is not possible on the Web.)
“I have never gone to a training for the instructor web page design. So maybe I am missing something. I only have a one page sheet that is title “An Easy Step-by-Step Approach to Accessing and Developing Your Web Page.” I would like the students to be able to access the page or what is the point. There is not enough support at the college to do this.”
“The Web issue has been discussed at various district library meetings. The libraries need access to a server to create and maintain web pages outside of the confines of the current web interface. Basically the WYSIWYG interface is too limiting for what the libraries need to do to take full advantage of the Internet when providing access to or instruction regarding information.”
“Examples of use of server might include materials for information literacy courses/ workshops etc. Laney had a web course set up for it’s info lit course on the old web page and needs to be able to place it, access it, and update it on the new web server.”
“Events, Calendar, and Upcoming Events do not work; calendar should be accessible to all departments.”
“The SQL server does not allow us to view weekly or monthly “page hits” nor can we update “Events” area.
“Security holes in the software cannot be patched when necessary.”
“There is no college Web master or technician to manage the site.”
“Website configuration is not complete (e.g., events, forums appear but do not work;
script was written but not configured).”
“Each college needs an on-site web person whose exclusive responsibility is development and maintenance of the web a new job description is needed which describes college needs with regard to Web maintenance, development, and troubleshooting.”
“Translation Programs should be available for international students.”
Recommendations:
• Reconvene and regularly hold meetings of PCCD’s Web Committee with students, faculty, staff, and administrative representatives from all Peralta colleges.
• Involve representation from all District and college stakeholders to develop a set of policies, procedures, and protocols for the Peralta and college Web environments.
• Regularly conduct surveys to gage campus Web concerns.
• Employ Web professionals to provide ongoing Web support and coordination at each Peralta campus.
• Grant colleges full authority to access and change code on demand, to change and move files to folders, direct access to the college home page, to change programming, images, text, and so forth, should be vested at the campus level, not with PCCD.
• Make Web access for programming, web page creation, and updating, functional on Mac and PC operating systems, and on all Web browsers.
• Place a dedicated computer and server on each campus to facilitate college-level Web coordination.
• Design a new Web environment to serve both knowledgeable users (FTP) and those with less experience (templates).
