Testing usability with parents and incoming students: Presenter: Lori Packer, University of Rochester Lori is a great presenter. Her session covered the basics of usability testing, as well as some of the unexpected results from her own experience. Last year she grabbed students and parents during the start of the orientation. With some trinkets she […]

Lunch was at the Hyatt. Afterward, I asked our waitress and then the bellhop about my options for picking up some slacks. Nada, nunca. But the concierge had overheard the conversation.  He set me up with their shuttle driver, Nick. On the next trip he drove past the airport and dropped me off at the […]

The flight from Chicago to Rochester was pretty uneventfully. I have had a sore throat for nearly a week and about an hour in I had a coughing fit, but luckily there was no one seated right next to me. However, on arrival my luggage was nowhere to be found… I almost never check baggage, […]

I love to fly. I just wish that planes didn’t take-off and land at airports. US airports have become awkward places, where a general feeling of paranoia follows you from the security check, and all the way down the concourse. From PDX to O’Hare, I was seated near the very back of the plane. To […]

“HighEdWeb is an organization of Web professionals working at institutions of higher education. We design, develop, manage and map the futures of higher education Web sites.” Each year, the organization puts on a conference where web professionals from colleges around the country gather to learn, discuss and network. I had the opportunity to attend in […]

Yesterday was the first day of the term. By 8am, the hoards of students began to show up. Whenever the campuses are energized like this, we try to get out and take photos. The results are often used to update the website or marketing publications. Near the end of the day, I headed down to […]

I was not sure whether to post this under work, or play. Portland Community College is currently participating in the Bicycle Transportation Alliance’s Bike Commute Challenge. When I started working here, I planned to ride everyday. It is only 8miles from my home, but it is almost all uphill. Over the trip, there is a […]

The Student Success and Retention Conference was held February 8-9, 2007 at Portland State University’s University Place, 310 SW Lincoln Street Portland, Oregon. The SSR Conference was sponsored by the Joint Boards Articulation Commission, Oregon Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, the Oregon University System, and Oregon’s community colleges.Together, Andrew Roessler and I were […]

The web team started getting requests to post pages of images. Maintaining photo galleries Flikr style seemed a bit odd for an education site. How usefully would a separate page of random images be for a prospective Mathematics student? However, I do understand that there are times where a single, static image is not enough. […]

Mark A.Greenfield – U of Buffalo This was a great one to end on. Mark, a very professional speaker, had put together a great presentation. He covered the changes from mosaic to google earth to the mobile browser. Then he began to look beyond. One interesting argument covered was that the web page, once thought […]