News & Events

The USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences has a very nicely designed template with primary top navigation; and standard dropdown menus for second-tier navigation. The second-tier and deeper navigation is displayed on the left menu, but subsection navigation (menu trails) are also highlighted in red to help indicate which section you are—makes it easy to recognize.

USC's News & Events section is nicely arranged with thumbnails, videos, teasers and dates. News item shows a feature at top with larger thumbnail, and lists below with thumbnail.

Virginia Tech also has a very nice left-navigation menu with professional looking, as shows on their University Relations department page.

The Event Calendar is very nicely placed in rightmost column without taking up too much screen space—yet you can click on a date in the mini-calendar, and it loads that day's events below it without reloading the page. When you click on a calendar event, there is a webcal: link to add the event to your personal calendar, plus links to social media (Digg, Facebook, Reddit, and Stumbleupon). The webcal feature is really nice. Every page has an email and print-ready link (which open in a lightbox). (Caution: dropdown links and print-friendly/email should really work with JavaScript off.)

The News articles are tagged by category and free-tags. This means you can click on any tag to see a list of any other articles tagged by the same term. They also feature Top Stories on the right. I wonder what makes them top stories? Number or readers, or author's decision? They also put single large images or even videos in the story. All stories can be browsed via the archives which are sorted by month.

USC also has "In the news" which is short clips where their school is named or somehow involved. Listings are chronological and can browse through the archives. Each item begins with a hyperlink to the referring article—very consistent.

The way this website is constructed and how the CMS taxonomy is implemented, this would be a good model for structuring our news site, as taxonomy and cross-linking has the potential to become fairly complex. This navigation seems fairly natural.

Current Student or Alumni

University of Denver
http://www.du.edu/currentstudents/index.html
EDIT 8/30/11: DU's design has since changed, but the screenshots below show what it used to look like.

Great idea to have people share their story and photo.  Could be used for anniversary, current students, or alumni. You can share your story via an email.

When you click on a picture from above this is the type of story it opens up.

Cornell Daily Sun: 161 Faces
http://161faces.cornellsun.com/
Cornell University has shown another great way to display student profiles or stories. Could be used for profiles, yearbook, or alumni. Each picture opens up a brief profile in a 'lightbox'-style popup window.

Prospective Student - Landing Page Ideas

Wesleyn
 http://www.findoutnwu.com/academics/

Fort Lewis
http://explore.fortlewis.edu/prospective/http://explore.fortlewis.edu/prospective/

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Secondary Page Header and Photo Examples

University of Denver

Footer Examples

University of Denver

Main Photo & Header Examples

Below are examples of header and primary photo examples that are similar to what the PC Web team has expressed as a direction for PC .  Links and notes reflect eduStyle reviews of the websites or EDU Check up.

About eduStyle

eduStyle is a web design gallery dedicated to higher education websites and powered by higher education web design professionals. Users submit, review, and comment on sites they like (or don't like). The aim is for higher ed web professionals to learn from and be inspired by the work of their peers. Once a month two sites are selected as Noteworthy based on user votes and feedback.
eduStyle celebrated its two-year anniversary on January 24, 2009. In the two year and a half over 3,000 higher-ed websites have been submitted to the gallery, and more than 10,000 visitors come to eduStyle each month.

Duke University (design score 97)
http://www.duke.edu/

Royal Roads University (Drupal) (C+)
http://www.royalroads.ca/
http://www.viddler.com/explore/educheckup/videos/156/
They used Drupal and he talks about some of the things they did wrong and could have cleaned up.

Claremont McKenna
Picture choice here was because of the celebration- which I think we should do for the 90th!
http://www.viddler.com/explore/educheckup/videos/135/
Comments on the length of drop downs (academics was too long)
Tips on the news (read more)
Cool News and Info Tabs

Freed-Hardeman (97 on visuals, 89 on information, 96 code A+)
http://www.fhu.edu/
http://www.viddler.com/explore/educheckup/videos/157/
Academics Page Nice http://www.fhu.edu/academics/index.aspx
Clean, good bottom, majors/minors good with buttons on the side; Consistent with nav menu on the side of the picture; should be more call to action buttons
iphone redirection (java script in home page)

Eastern University (A)
(rated highly)
http://www.eastern.edu/springboards/prospective_students.html
http://www.viddler.com/explore/educheckup/videos/147/

University of Denver (A)
http://www.du.edu/index.html
Good footer, great pictures





Deeside College (A) (This is not included for main picture but nav is good)

http://www.deeside.ac.uk/index.php
http://www.viddler.com/explore/educheckup/videos/153/
course description has send to a friend
front page has twitter updates
good use of color blending with photos
lots of next step and calls to action throughout
amazing job of applying online
text to get more information from the college - never seen this one- wonder what the process is?
tutor spotlights
drop down examples look like what we want.

Franklin University
Very Clean, Good Call to Action
http://www.franklin.edu/

 ddd

Media (news, events, etc)

Royal Roads
Media Page or News Release Page Footer (continued other events on the bottom of the release)
http://www.american.edu/americantoday/campus-news/20100119haiti-earthquake-finance.cfmldl

Claremont
http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/

Franklin
http://www.franklin.edu/
Good use of areas below main picture which could be used for prospective and current students

Indian Hills
Good use of video and podcast

Pitzer
Nice use of color and textured background

 Could be used in the media area

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Top Sites Reviewed and Other Examples

Cornell University: http://www.cornell.edu/ 
Pro: Easy to read and navigate, collegial, clean
Con: Stuffy/Formal, Not student friendly, not enrollment oriented

Pima College: http://www.pima.edu/
Pro: well laid out, easy to navigate, provided great information, nice design
Con: narrow fixed width layout design, could be more dynamic, not too exciting

Northland College: http://northland.edu/ 
 Pro:  faculty profiles, good use of images and student testimonials, fonts, events calendar, pleasant layout, lots of white space, fresh design, color scheme, navigation, drop down bars on top navigation.

Con: lack of good integrated course information; library site is completely different.




Portland Community College: http://www.pcc.edu/
Pro: Program Information, consistent site, student centered, 5 main topics - use of photos
Con: Color scheme is boring, no visual appeal

Washtenaw Community College
http://www.wccnet.edu/

Pro:  Very creative, unique, very appropriate blend of color, design, and graphics, calendar page, course listing, navigation and layout
Con: busy, distracting, events pushed to the bottom of page

Biola University http://www.biola.edu/undergrad/ (peoples choice)
Pro: Nice campus map. Colors and graphics. Verbiage is good and student friendly. Graphics are hip and eye catching. Exciting and vibrant. A lot of information in a student friendly format.
Con:  Main navigation links are not as easy to see as they conflict with all of the information on the front page.

Randolph College
http://www.randolphcollege.edu/x5.xml

Pro: nice clean look, consistent, uncluttered design, good contrast, dominant student images, good search feature, rss feeds, video with photo layout on main page, heavy use of flash (pro/con)
Con: bottom half of main page doesn't balance the top (heavy graphics on top), some navigation (tiny text on top), courses/programs hard to find

Gateway Community College - Program page
http://www.gatewaycc.edu/Programs/
Pro:  Program page:  nice use of photos, navigation is clear, student centered information, thumbnails good use of faculty marketing/blog/etc.





Boston University http://www.bu.edu/
Drop Down Menu Example
Virginia Commenwealth University (new) (DROP DOWN MENU EXAMPLE)
http://www.preview.vcu.edu/index.php

http://web.trinity.edu/x845.xml  (nice news and events page) ea, nice slideshow with images
Washington State University has a nice photo/video on home page