In response to complaints within the Pratt School of Engineering, a new website has been created under website designer Rebecca Board. The site--www.egr.duke.edu--is now active but is still undergoing additions and changes.
Board's aim was to make the website not only more informative and aesthetically pleasing, but also more user friendly.
"The first priority is content... [and] the next priority is to make it more friendly.... We want alumni to visit our site.... There will be more pictures... [and] it will be more content searchable," she said.
The title of webmaster came under Board's command after an informal conversation with Pratt Dean Kristina Johnson. "There had been a lot of concern and unhappiness from the school itself.... It didn't look like a Duke website," Board commented, adding that users often found it difficult to navigate.
Board also mentioned that the school did not update the site frequently because the internal design was difficult to use; in addition, nobody had overseen the site's development.
With the help of Associate Director of Communications Steven Wright, the website now also contains a new electronic newsletter, The Pratt Press.
Users can access the monthly issue through the Pratt website's news and events area.
The first issue contains articles and briefs, profiles, pictures and a welcome note from Johnson.
With it's more extensive layout, it is meant to replace an older version, First Friday Club, which provided an rarely updated series of briefs.
Wright, Trinity '01 and a former university editor of The Chronicle, said the school created the newsletter because many other schools have them.
He added that the site is a good way to put out information, not only for Duke's students and faculty, but for the engineering community around the country as well.
Director of Duke News Al Rossiter agreed that the renovations of the site were a good idea. "We hope that it will be certainly helpful.... It will be a source of current news at the school and I think it's been badly needed."
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