Archived Suggestions :: April 2009

Suggestion — 1186

Subject — Summer Important Dates & Deadlines

Forwarded to — Registrar

Suggestion / Comment

When will the Summer "Important Dates and Deadlines" be up on the website? Thank you.

Response

Thank you for your question. The "important dates" for summer will be available very soon. A new calendar format is being created, which we think will provide students with more information and easier access to the information as well.

Suggestion — 1187

Subject — New Employees

Forwarded to — Director, Human Resources

Suggestion / Comment

When is HR going to assume responsibility for something? Their response to the suggestion regarding getting an updated listing of new employees once again put the ownership on "us" to request that information. It was a good sugggestion so why can't HR be proactive and just provide us the list? We shouldn't have to ask for it.

Response

After reviewing your suggestion for the second time and getting input from others, it was determined that it would be beneficial to let everyone know when new employees begin employment, employees transfer from one department to another and when others are leaving. We will begin sending out the notification list to the university community as a whole instead of just certain departments. We do appreciate your suggestion and please do not hesitate to call us if you have other suggestions/concerns.

Suggestion — 1188

Subject — UHV Website

Forwarded to — Director, Marketing

Suggestion / Comment

Can we get some different student/faculty pictures on the homepage? Most websites vary their pictures but these don't seem to ever change. No offense, but they are getting old.

Response

No offense taken.

It has always been our plan to update the images of the Web site to keep it looking fresh. In fact, we have even developed an improved design of the home page and secondary pages to improve the look of the site. In this upgrade, we have incorporated some wonderful icons for online course, email, student solutions, etc. to help users find these resources fast. With our small department, we have been challenged with devoting the resources to implement our plans. We are hopeful that once we get past producing marketing materials for summer enrollment and materials required for spring commencement, we will be able to upgrade our Web site.

Thanks for taking the time to submit your suggestion.

Suggestion — 1189

Subject — Important Dates & Deadlines

Forwarded to — Applications Programmer/Developer

Suggestion / Comment

It was difficult for me to find the important dates and calendar. Maybe a more prominent button link would be useful. Also, at first glance, I prefer the old format (table style) that was used in Spring 2009.

Response

Thanks for your comments regarding the new Important Dates calendar. As with anything new, I understand that it will take some getting used to. We are currently working on adding pages that list dates specific to the departments. This will provide an alternative for those who prefer the previous table-style layout.

The Google calendar does offer a few features that we hope you will find are useful improvements over the previous version:

• Visitors with a Gmail account can add dates from the UHV calendar to their own Google calendar with a single click.
• Visitors have three options to view dates: by week, by month, or a complete list view.
• Visitors have more options for printing (weekly, monthly, list).
• Departments can maintain their own events.

We will continue reviewing responses from students, faculty, staff, and other visitors regarding the new calendar and make adjustments to ensure that the calendar is user-friendly and the information is easy to locate.

Suggestion — 1190

Subject — Financial Aid Office

Forwarded to — Director, Financial Aid

Suggestion / Comment

I would like to suggest that Financial Aid keep their blinds facing the hallway open. It creates a more friendly and inviting atmosphere.

Response

Great suggestion. All UHV offices should do the same.

Suggestion — 1191

Subject — Online Programs

Forwarded to — Dean, School of Arts & Sciences

Suggestion / Comment

This is my first year as a computer science student and I am concerned about the number of online classes that are offered. Will UHV lose its accreditation if it moves to a complete online university. It really feels like we are pushed to take online classes because it is cheaper. Has a survey been done about what students want. I do not want online classes. I came to school to learn, not to teach myself online.

Response

UHV receives its accreditation from SACS. This organization is fully aware of UHV's online offerings and is no jeopardy of losing its accreditation. In the School of Arts and Sciences, for every seven students that register for one of our online courses, one enrolls in a face to face course. Our course offerings reflect these enrollment patterns. Each semester registration acts as a de facto survey of student course demand. As for the quality of each course, if you feel that the course quality is not to your liking, you should indicate this in the course evaluation form. These forms allow us to improve the quality of our offerings. Thank you for your comments and concerns. I wish you every success in your studies.

Suggestion — 1192

Subject — UHV Website

Forwarded to — Sr. Director, Information Technology

Suggestion / Comment

When is the website going to become more consistent? We've had the new design for over a year now and still have many "old design" pages, including IT who maintains the web. The web presents an image of UHV to visitors and potential students. We need to really make the web our priority and fix the image we currently present, which is not good.

Response

Thank you for your suggestion.

The University’s new website launched July 31, 2008. During the fall semester of '08, all of the student related websites were rolled out into the new design, and during the spring semester more than 80% of the internal websites were updated. There was time given to each department to not only update their look, but also their content. The IT site has not been updated, because Web Services typically caters to all other offices first. We have been working on the IT roll-out, and will have it out before the end of May.

We agree that the web is a priority, and try to make it better every day.

Suggestion — 1193

Subject — UHV Website/Sign On

Forwarded to — Sr. Director, Information Technology

Suggestion / Comment

We have desparately needed a content management system to help us more easily manage and keep web content up to date. We've also needed a single sign on portal for students, faculty and staff to cut down on the number of user names and passwords everyone has. Supposedly we have been looking into these two things for well over 3 years now and nothing has happened. We cannot afford to be so slow in making technology decisions that would provide such imediate benefits.

Response

First, my apologies for taking so long to respond to these suggestions, but I was waiting until now to announce our progress in implementing a new content management system (CMS) at UHV. We have completed our review of five leading CMS applications, selected Open Text as the one that best fits our needs, and have completed the purchase process. We are now installing the software and will begin the migration process of moving our website into the Open Text environment. Our plan is to complete the implementation and migration process late this summer and begin training users across the campus shortly after that. This application will allow end users to manage (update, change, and delete) their own content without the involvement of Marketing or Web Services staff. It will also provide a set of templates, tools, and wizards to assist users in creating or modifying web content. And it will allow users to set content to be updated to a new version or previous version at a future time.

As for a single sign-on portal for students, the challenge there is more difficult. Students are now required to use three accounts/passwords: PeopleSoft account for registration and student records; WebCT/BlackBoard account for on-line classes; and UHV account for email, and access to Library resources and computer lab systems. Two of these accounts (PeopleSoft and WebCT/Blackboard) are UH System applications over which we have little control. Because the UHS is just beginning an ID Management Project, in which single sign-on capability will be provided for all System applications, they are not willing to make any changes to those applications regarding access until that project is implemented, sometime in the next calendar year. Until then, we don't expect to see any relief from the multiple accounts and passwords we're using.

Suggestion — 1194

Subject — UHV Web Page Changes

Forwarded to — Sr. Director, Information Technology

Suggestion / Comment

Please provide a system for addressing simple web page changes quickly. Currently, it is not clear whether the change needs to be presented to marketing or the web folks or both. Also, when a simple change is requested and justified, it can still take weeks for that change to be implemented. We rely too heavily on our web to not be quicker and more efficient with updates/changes. There also needs to be better interaction between marketing and the web folks. It is not professional or appropriate for both to "blame" the other for the web challenges/problems, etc.

Response

The system in place for addressing any content changes, web projects, or new web services is to send a message to the email box: WebRequest@uhv.edu. When sending a request to this email address, any of the web staff in IT may help you.

In the request, please be sure to add hyperlinks, attach documents, and request for a meeting, if needed. The expected turnaround time for most content requests is 24 hours. Projects and new web services can take longer, and may require several visits, but the email gets the project in queue and allows for a more effective process in our working with each department.

If you have any questions about the WebRequest@uhv.edu email process, please contact Marci Wallace.

The process for submitting a marketing request or a web design change (not web content, or web services) is to fill out the form at http://www.uhv.edu/marketing/submitrequest.asp. If you have questions about the marketing request timeline, please contact John Ellis.

Click here to return to the Archived Suggestions Page