A few days ago UIUC launched a new version of the “Illinois Directory” (also known on campus as “PH,” “People Search,” and “Stalker net”). The interface is nicer with options to specifically search based on NetID, Department, Phone, etc. What is now missing, however, is actual detailed information on student profiles. In the old version of the system, details like phone number, address, website, and department/major were available for viewing (although these details could be hidden using a custom interface). Now you can get only a measly amount of information – name, netID, and status (student, faculty, staff, etc)

Even worse is the slap in the face listed on the About the New Directory page:

Faculty and Staff may login in using their netid to see all of the information in the LDAP database for students, faculty and staff.
Students may log in as well, but no additional information fields will be displayed.

So faculty and staff have access to my private details, but other students don’t? I wonder what kind of information is available to the faculty – my home address? cell phone number? social security number?

The good news is that the old Stalker Net is still up and running for a limited time. Be sure to copy down those personal details while you still can.

I know what you are thinking… “there are already too many social networking sites, I can’t join another!” Well, this one is a little different than normal. It was created by a retired UI professor and speaks to the sustainability issues of Champaign county. The site is called “Transition Champaign County” and is open to all those who want to discuss “moving toward a sustainable and locally resilient Champaign County.”

Launched by Gary Cziko, a retired University of Illinois professor, Transition Champaign County is a clearinghouse of sorts for sustainability news, events and discussions in the region.

It’s part of a network of communities around the U.S. and abroad, inspired by Transition Town initiatives in Ireland and England, where communities have come together to address issues such as climate change.

“We hear about what can individuals do (replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones) and what can government can do (exploring carbon taxes or cap and trade), but you don’t hear a lot about what communities can do,” Cziko said.

So come on, sign up, log in and chat it up.

Transition Champaign County

Retired UI prof launches site for county sustainability issues – The News-Gazette

The new design is finally live. You’ve followed the Illinois.edu website redesign here for ten months, and now it has come to fruition.

Looking much like the initial designs, the new Illinois website has an orange-based design with accents of light-blue. A new search bar adorns the top of the site, with links to the most commonly used campus resources – CITES email, maps, calendars, and (a newly requested feature) weather. The popular “A minute with …” series is featured prominently in the center of the homepage.

For current students, there are now links to Illinois Compass and the UI Enterprise system (where we pay bills, see our grades, and register for classes). Something curiously missing is a link to the UIUC Courses (courses.uiuc.edu) page under the “Current Students” menu, although there is a direct link under “Featured Resources.”

One of the most interesting and innovative promised parts of the website, the “Here and Now: Images of Illinois” section where anyone (students, faculty, friends) can submit images to be posted on the home page of Illinois.edu, is not yet working. It should be working by the first day of the fall semester, August 25.

A surprisingly good section of the new design is under About Us > Overview. This section of the website gives access to new Illinois facts, rankings, computer wallpaper, mobile-device wallpaper, ringtones, and the popular Quad Cam.

Congratulations to Val Turner, Joel Steinfeldt, and their entire team at Illinois Creative Services on a successful launch. Remember that they will be tweaking the website design for the next few weeks, so if you have great ideas, send them using the feedback form.

If you navigate to http://istart.uiuc.edu, you get a blank white page that says “ODOSISTARTWEB.” The “www.” is required in the web address. This also happens for the OAR website at http://oar.uiuc.edu. Isn’t it a fairly accepted web standard that three-part internet addresses in the form http://xxxxx.uiuc.edu should work with or without the “www.”? I always thought so.

We broke the news back in September 2007 that the University of Illinois website (www.uiuc.edu, or in the future www.illinois.edu) is undergoing a redesign. A preview of the new design has been posted.

This is really exciting for the Illinois community. The current design is in need of a change, and I think the new design is a nice improvement. From the “Younger, fresher, brighter colors – all within an elegant format” to the new customizable Illinois Search Bar (reminds me of the Blogger search bar that graces the top of this website), it all looks smashing.

I’m also really excited about “Here & Now: Images of Illinois.” This is a section of the website where images submitted by students, faculty, and staff are displayed. This is an exciting feature that I think will make the campus website much more exciting and informative. Parsing through all the potential news on this campus is a hard thing to do, and this is a great solution to get other perspectives of the campus published.

Don’t forget to take the survey when you’re finished viewing the new design. Your opinions will shape the UIUC website design for years to come!

The UIUC Library Gateway has just launched there new website. The re-design was done by the Gateway Conversion Team, is “tremendously easier to use, and 100% code & FAE compliant.”

The re-designed Gateway Web site delivers many features that make it more convenient for you to identify Library resources. The Easy Search box provides powerful one-stop searching across dozens of Library digital and print resources, including journal databases, newspapers, books, media. Information is organized by subject and by College major as well. Further, considerable effort has been put into accessibility, allowing users who use screen readers to more easily navigate library web pages. Many more new features await your exploration and discovery on this site. In the coming months we will continue to add and update the content on the site, and we appreciate your suggestions, feedback, and understanding as we transform this valuable university resource.

UIUC Library Gateway

Did you know the University of Illinois website front page is getting redesigned? Last year the Chancellor and Provost requested that the current website, which is plagued with over 130 links, be redesigned to be more accessible, more user friendly, and to represent the essence of the University. This will be an extensive undertaking, which is headed by Joel Steinfeldt and Val Turner of UIUC Creative Services.

I attended a meeting about this redesign initiative on Wednesday. At the meeting, they shared some interesting data on the traffic of the current website. Some of the interesting facts were:

• Most users use the website to get to the CITES express email page. This is the most popular reason that users visit the site.
• 75% of the current website traffic comes from on campus.
• After US-English, Korean is the most popular viewing language.
• More people go to the UIUC website using Windows 2000 than Windows Vista (although Windows XP is the operating system of choice for the overwhelming majority of visitors)

The first step of the redesign process is to collect research from current users. The team at Creative Services has formulated over nine categories of individuals that they plan to interview, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, corporate partners, parents and the general public. After all this information is collected and analyzed, the design process will begin.

The first revision of the website redesign will be complete by mid-October. At this time, the design will be approved by the Chancellor and Provost, and a preview of the design will be released to the public. From there, further coding is done, and then a site freeze and user testing will happen. Hopefully the final revision will be finished some time after that.

One of the cool ideas that the Creative Services team is thinking of implementing is a “This week in photos” section, where anyone on campus can submit a photo to be featured. This will bring greater diversity and information about campus life to the front page. Another odd request of the website is for weather. Apparently people like to see U of I’s weather on the website; so that will be included in the new design as well.

Joel, Val, and their team at Creative Services have a lot of work to do on the redesign, but judging from what I heard at the meeting today, the design is in very capable hands.

For more information on the website redesign, or to sign up to be a volunteer user interface tester, visit the project website at www.uiuc.edu/goto/webteam

Image: UIUC Website, March 1997