Launched, But Not Finished
We have launched. The New NewsU is live [as you probably already know thanks to our e-mail blast.]
We have officially thrown the switch for our new site. And nothing blew up.
That's what makes everyone happy, which we are. And we're pretty tired, too. We've all been hard at this for the last several months and during the last several weeks it has been very intense. OK, I've been very tense.
We aren't done yet. NewsU has great users and they are giving us great ideas about how to make the site even better. We came across one idea today: A screencast on how to send a "course report." This was put together by Barbara Nixon who teaches at both Georgia Southern University (online) and Southeastern University (face-to-face).
If you want to learn more about some of our new ideas and features on the site, come to our FREE Webinar on
One Step Closer to Our New Site
We made a big step yesterday. At 5:30 p.m., Eastern Time, we made the first of two technology changes to the new site and technology platform for Poynter's News University project: We turned off the registration system on the old site and are now signing up folks only on the new platform.
After 133,804 users, our final sign-up on the platform was a student from the journalism school at the University of Minnesota. Go Gophers.
We think our new registration is easier. There is one big change, however.
One Step Closer
We made a big step yesterday. At 5:30 p.m., Eastern Time, we made the first of two technology changes to the new site and technology platform for Poynter's News University project: We turned off the registration system on the old site and are now signing up folks only on the new platform.
After 133,804 users, our final sign-up on the platform was a student from the journalism school at the University of Minnesota. Go Gophers.
Countdown Starts to a New NewsU
It will happen this month. A new e-learning site will be born.
We just aren't sure as to which day will mark this milestone. We are that close with the launch of the new News University site.
Here's what we know right now: The basic structure of the site is finished. We are tweaking some of the courses. [OK, we are tweak a few courses and doing some major remodeling for others.] We testing various new features, including the improved Course Report functionality.
We are also getting ready to launch several new courses. More on that later.
It's been quiet, too quiet
Main Picture:
Yes, we are STILL very quiet about the new NewsU site. It isn't that we haven't had much to say. We have. However, taken out of context, our posts wouldn't made much sense to folks outside the project.
So, what have we been doing since the item I wrote about "Now the fun begins"? [See below.]
Beyond the conference calls -- lots of them -- and the lists of things to do, our developers [http://www.atendesign.com] and the NewsU Crew have been working on three major aspects of the project:
A little more about our new course page
On our new site Course listings page we'll have many ways to find courses. This new page, on the new site, will replace our LEAST favorite page -- that long, long listing of course titles. Four years ago, it didn't matter. We didn't have that many courses. Today, it is just overwhelming.
We'll be adding a search box, just for courses [Yea!]. And we'll have a site search function as well.
However, one of the design/functionality features that has us excited involves "browsing."
Now the fun begins
We have been quiet lately. Too quiet. But there's not much to post on this blog when much of the technical work won't matter to most folks. So long as it works.
However, we are about to make some important decisions. We are looking at design mockups and starting to get into the redesign weeds.
Inline Images:Content within and without
Today's call with our developers produced an "ahh" moment: Where should course content reside within the Drupal framework? Should courses launch in their own window so we don't need to deal with frames, etc.? Could that be confusing? Would we need a different navigation.
On the positive side: Courses could have a "wide open" look and feel.
On the negative side: Consistency, user experience, navigation.It is a challenge when you move to a new site: how much do you twist what you have done [in the past] to what you can do [in the future, with the new system]?
Early results sorting training modules
We have some early results in how NewsU users rank the various ways to find courses in our upcoming new design.
We asked folks, via a three-question survey, to rank these methods of finding training:
NewsU Next: Building our bold future
The crew at Poynter’s News University is about to embark on our most important project since we launched four years ago: redesign of the site. However, this isn’t just about a new look – although we really need a face-lift. This is about re-imagining how best to serve our audience. How can we make NewsU more useful to our more than 100,000 registered users in more than 200 countries?
NewsU Next
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