The Controversy of Central Michigan University’s Web Upgrade

CMU Home Page

On April 9, Central Michigan University was proud to launch a brand new website to replace the previous version. An email was sent out to all staff and students on April 5, to notify everyone of the change. The email said, “…the Web Taskforce is pleased to officially launch CMU’s new web presence on April 9. The team has diligently worked to rebuild the website for the first time ever from the inside out. All traffic will automatically be redirected to the new sites, no user action is required for the changeover.” The university has spent a lot of time and money to make this new website become a reality.
The 2011-12 Operating Budget included almost eleven million dollars for computer-related expenses. $550,000 of this money was used to build the largely expensive new website.

Computing Budget for CMU 2011-2012

The website is greatly different than the previous CMU website and this has led to different reactions from CMU students and staff. The overall opinion of the new website is highly negative. But is it possible that people do not speak well about the website because it is so much different than before? Is it simply an adjustment issue many do not want to deal with? The best way to answer this is to ask someone who does not attend CMU and has not had to use the website on a regular basis. Then compare that to students who use the website often and ask how they compare the old from the new.

I asked Aaron Garceau, a student of CMU what his reaction to the new website is and he said, “it’s okay, easier to find stuff and it looks better … I mean it’s changed but it’s not too bad.”

Lynn Bradford, another CMU student says, “It is not worth the university spending tuition money on such an expensive website that is not necessary. It cost a lot to build and it costs even more for all the labor being put into fixing all the errors it has had so far.”

As one can see, there are mixed opinions about the website on campus. But taking a moment to address this issue with someone who does not attend CMU, I spoke with Angela McGillis who has seen the old website before and said after viewing the new site for the very first time, “I like it better already than their previous setup. I like that there is a drop down box for each menu section as opposed to the previous click a link, scour the page for what you want, click that link, scour that page for the next thing you want.” Then Angela proceeded to tell me, “Their website was massively split up into a ton of unnecessary sub-pages. It took forever to find what you were looking for but I have heard that they have a lot of loading issues with it though.” Someone who has not had to use the website a lot yet has seen the old one seems to appreciate the changes that were made.

Although the overall opinion has been negative, perhaps it is just CMU students and faculty that are not happy to learn a completely different website after being so familiar with the previous one.

Clicking the tabs at the top make it easy to find academic programs at CMU.

When using the new website, a user can click the tabs at the top and easily navigate to different sections such as academic programs. This is something prospective CMU students might want to check out and since it is simple to find from the home page, it is a possibility that this can be a positive thing for the future of CMU online. The website has mixed reviews right now but the best analysis will be possible after the website has been in action for an entire academic year so the issues with it can be worked out and the students and faculty can become familiar with everything that has changed from the old model. It is possible that in a year’s time, the general opinion will be that the old system was better. It is also a possibility that the new system will become an efficient and effective way for the university to present itself online and be useful for current students as well as others who are clicking on to check out what Central Michigan University offers.

The main page gives web-users the ability to search the entire site or search CMU's directory.

Some things the website offers appear to be very user-friendly and effective. However when the website launched, this was a completely different story. On the second day of the new website being in action, it was not working. Those who tried to access the website were given an error message that told them the site was unavailable. This was part of the reason for the bad first impressions many had about the website.

Within the first two days of launch, the CMU website was completely offline and unavailable.

An email, the following day from CMU’s Web Taskforce said, “The Central Michigan University external website, cmich.edu, was restored at 5 p.m. today. Ongoing efforts to stabilize and optimize the environment will continue throughout the next few days.” The problem with this is that many noticed the website appeared to not be fully operational at the time of launch. Questions one might want to as the university include, Why was the website launched within a month of the end of the semester instead of waiting until Fall when all the bugs were worked out? Another question is, Why was the website not thoroughly checked before launch to ensure a clean start to the new setup? The Office of Information Technology did not respond to my questions when I attempted to discuss it with them.

But even as the kinks are being resolved, there is still another issue people face. There are links around the web that direct people to parts of CMU’s website. But since everything has been transferred to the new system, some of the links no longer work properly and take the user to a 404 error page.

Some links that worked under the old website now direct web visitors to an error page.

A conclusion that can be made from researching this new website is that it cannot be determined immediately how well or how poorly the website will be long-term. Once people use the site for a significant period of time and once new people who did not use the old site start using the new one, we will be able to see whether or not the investment in this new site will be worth it. The opinions among the community vary from one side to the other and these are all based on first impressions of the new site. Future bugs and crashes could be in the website’s future. It is too early at this point to come to a widely accepted conclusion.

Multi-media Journalism Techniques

A word cloud is a great way to show people a pile of words that are associated with the news story and works great as a tile slide or image for a video or slideshow. These can also be used to attract people that are looking for certain types of stories.

A poll can be used to get the web visitors to interact with the news story. It gets people to contribute and find out what others are voting for as well. This can create a connection between the journalist and the audience.

Moving from Spain and Working in America

At a small town Wendy’s restaurant a woman named Julia Spicer-Torres originally from Spain, moved to the United States to live with her husband and talks about what it was like to learn the new language. Her daughter, Rocío, speaks about the benefits of being bilingual.

 

Analysis of David Pogue’s Motorola Xoom Review

A tech journalist for the New York Times made this video over a year ago to review the Motorola Xoom. The Xoom is a tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad. He tried to be entertaining by showing the similarities of the Xoom and the iPad but acting as if those similarities are actually big differences. The video was only about two and a half minutes long so it didn’t have time for extensive reviews but he did have time to quickly show the two devices and give small comparisons of each. If he hadn’t jokes around as much the video could have been as short as one minute, but to keep the audience interested, he continued to be entertaining. The narrative was clear and to the point. The beginning was just showing the Xoom and iPad and explaining what they were. Throughout the middle, he talked about some of the features of each device and talked about what is new on the Xoom, but not in the iPad. He concluded by saying there will be more tablets to come soon and to keep an eye out for them.

The first sound we hear is a little music put in by the New York Times. Then the first thing we see is David Pogue’s finger touching the Motorola Xoom. The visuals weren’t great at first but his attitude draws in the audiences’ attention. There is a small variety of shots throughout the video. Mostly, we see him sitting in the chair with a medium shot. There are some close-ups when he is showing things on the two devices to let the audience see exactly what he was doing and talking about. There is almost no natural sound in the video but there is music that plays very quietly in the background. This music works because it helps the flow of the story.

The overall video was rather fast paced, but not too much that can cause the audience to get overwhelmed. What I liked about it was that it was a fast and easy way to see some differences between the two products. It was not meant to be a thorough analysis of either, and it accomplished its goal well. What I didn’t like about it was that of the short time he had, he talked about several different things instead of focusing on one or two differences between the devices that could have been more informative. If it were my video, I would not have had the man on the screen as much, but rather just listen to his voice as he showed examples of things on the devices. More close ups of the Xoom and iPad would have helped the video accomplish even more.

Tornado Damaged Victims – Audio Slideshow

Bill Boots explains his family’s experience as an EF2 tornado lifted their house off its foundation and spared their lives. The day after the tornado tore through the family’s home, media, friends, neighbors, and family all arrived to find out what happened and to offer any help possible to the victims who were lucky to be alive.

Grandfather, Babysitter, Mentor

There is a slideshow hosted by the New York Times called Joseph Cotton: The Grandfather. It is about a grandfather who plays an exceptionally large role in the lives of his three daughter’s four children. He plays the roll of a babysitter and that is how the slideshow starts. The first slide is of him taking care of a small child on a couch while talking about being a babysitter. The first thing about the slideshow that caught my attention was the black and white photographs. Every photo used was not in color. It helped make the story interesting and it looked very good. The beginning of the story is Mr Cotton talking about how he takes care of his grandchildren. As the story progresses he talks more about what he does with them. He says he doesn’t teach them, but he shows them things that he hopes they can learn from. The photos are mostly him and the children he is talking about. Towards the end of the slideshow, Mr. Cotton talks about how he never expected to live as long as he did. He thought he wouldn’t live to be 16. But as of the time of this audio slideshow, he was 57 years old. He thanks God for getting the time he has to spend with family now because he knows that as the children get older, they are less likely to want to spend as much time with him. One thing this slideshow lacks is natural sound. The only sound heard throughout the entire 3 minute presentation is the voice of Mr. Cotton. The slideshow has a very simple setup and I believe it was intentionally put together like that to help this story flow. There are no movements with the photos. The pictures used could have possibly been better if pans or zooms were used but even without them it looked good. The person who made this clearly did not want a glossy, extravagant presentation of this simple man and his simple story. The story was not only simple, but paced very slowly. This is due to the man who spoke slowly and thought clearly about what he had to say. He gives the impression that he is a very experienced man in a lot of ways. He cares about what is important and doesn’t get bothered with what is not. Another thing this slideshow lacks is a caption with any slide. There is a small description of the story at the top but does not change from slide to slide. It says the man’s name and explains that he spends time with grandchildren helping shape their view of the world. What I like about this slideshow is that it is not very glamorous. It is simple and understandable in every way. The message the man wants to get across is done successfully in a very comfortable and subtle way. It is not unnecessarily flashy like it could have been. It could have included a few captions and some natural sound. If this were my slideshow I might have added those in. However, because it worked well the way it was made, I’m not sure I would want to alter it very much as natural sound can be too distracting sometimes with certain stories. As discussed in my Online Journalism class at Central Michigan University, natural sound is a very important aspect to an audio slideshow. It can help pull the audience in and make them feel as if they are there on the scene. I believed this to be true for all slideshows but after watching this one, I realize that a slideshow can still be interesting without it if done right.

A Day in the Life of a Television News Producer

Julien Desrayaud is a news producer at WNEM TV5. He tells us about his experience as a producer and gives examples about how things work in a day on the job. In this interview, Julien takes us inside the control room of a live newscast.

Analysis of an Entertainment Blog and a Tech Blog

A blogger I recently have paid close attention to is Nikki Finke who is head of Deadline.com. She regularly posts blogs that are related to the entertainment industry. Another blogger I have followed is Sebastian Haley of VentureBeat who writes a blog about technology. It does not appear that either of the bloggers comment on their own blogs. This is not good for readers who would like to communicate with the author. However, the issues that both of these bloggers write about generate enough conversation in the comments by readers. It may not be necessary for the author to respond to most of the comments anyways. Nikki does a great job with her blogs starting with the headlines. Her headlines are straight to the point and tells the reader exactly what the blog is about. Sebastian does this as well in his tech blogs to make readers more attracted to the story and to be able to scan things easier. Although the two are professionals, they both write in an informal tone. This allows for the readers to feel more comfortable reading the blogs and can attract more people to them. Nikki Finke does not put a lot of links into her blogs but the ones that she does has links to other parts of deadline.com. This can be a problem because usually there are plenty of relevant websites that can be linked to a blog to help the reader learn more. Sebastian does a much better job using links. He doesn’t use many links but when he does, they link to websites relating directly to the topic within the blog.

Nikki’s blog has aspects to it that interest me. She writes about entertainment in a way that her niche audience can enjoy while getting informed. Like any good entertainment journalist, she puts a lot of personality into her posts to make them more attractive to readers. She chooses to write about topics that are very current and relevant to what her readers are looking for right now. Her writing is interesting enough to be able to scan through the text quickly and pick up useful information, but also is good enough to be able to read every word and enjoy it. One issue about her blog that I don’t like is that some of them are far too short. It’s best to write about something where there is more to talk about than just a few sentences. One thing I would suggest to her about her short blogs is to at least add a link or two that can send the readers to another article or blog that talks about more details than what she gives. This allows for her to write a short blog if she wants but to still inform the readers of more from other sources. If she works on making the short blogs more effective with links she will be a more productive online journalist. Also, her other weakness is not commenting on user comments at all. If she chooses to respond to some of them, it could encourage readers to continue to come back to her even more.

Sebastian’s blog is great for those interested in tech issues. He writes things in a way that is very concise. I can scan his blog and pick up on what he is talking about very fast and get informed easily. Even his short blogs contain important things like links and quotes to make the reader’s experience even better. He writes about things that are happening now or at least important currently. This makes his blogs even more relevant to its readers who are not likely going to be interested in outdated topics. Something he needs to work on would be responding to comments by his readers. When talking about technology and video games, his readers are more likely to have questions and important comments. If he chose to respond to some of them to keep people more informed and more interested in coming back, he could develop a larger following.

If I were to write an entertainment blog or a tech blog, I would make sure to post a lot of links in the blog to show people where I received information and to send people to sites that talk more thoroughly about things that I didn’t cover in as much detail. I would also make sure to respond to some of the comments on the blog. Most comments do not need to be responded to but there are some questions and concerns that some people have that shouldn’t be ignored by the author of the blog.

 

Map of Some of News Corp.’s Locations in the United States

This map shows the world headquarters to News Corp, 20th Century Fox’s studios, The New York Post, and a few News Corp. owned Fox affiliates.

 

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Multimedia Journalism Stories

Catholics Rally Against Obama Contraception Mandate

Rick Jervis, USA Today

This story about a conflict among churches and the government about contraception laws embraces multimedia in more than one way. The text is right to the point and easy to scan through and the visuals include a photograph that simply shows pills which is part of what the article is about. Another medium they used is video. There is a video clip including opinions of a presidential candidate on the subject. The article from the USA Today is also on The Huffington Post’s website and includes the ability to share via social networks and leave comments on the story.

Gingrich Sued Over Using ‘Eye of the Tiger’ Song in Campaign

Tiffany Gabbay, The Blaze

The article is about how Newt Gingrich is being sued for wrongfully using a copyrighted song on the campaign trail. The story is simple to scan through and pick up peices of the story that seem interesting. There is a video that features Gingrich walking out to give a speech at CPAC and the song, ‘Eye of the Tiger’ is playing to show the readers an example of what the article is talking about. The Blaze offers the ability to share the story as well. Under the headline is a large photo from one of the Rocky movies in which the song was a theme to. Much of the page is filled with comments by readers.

Megyn Kelly Cross-Examines RNC Chief Over Comparing Obama To Italian Cruise Captain

James Crugnale, Mediaite

Megyn Kelly of Fox News Channel interviewed the chairman of the RNC because he made comments that compared President Obama to the captain of the wrecked cruise ship in Italy. The article has a photo that is a snapshot of the interview that took place on Megyn’s show, America Live. At the bottom of the article is a video clip directly from Fox News that shows the part of the interview that is being covered in the text. The article can be shared via social networks and Mediaite allows for readers to leave comments below the article. The text is very short and right to the point, which is great for a story like this one that just needs a small amount of explanation. Most of the story is within the video clip itself.