WEB SITE QUESTIONS

Original Query from Trish O’Leary, ILR, Albertus Magnus College, Orange, CT
First, we'd like to know what web development software people are using. We have heard Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 is very good, but it is a bit of an investment (around $200) and we want to know how people have found it to work with. Second, what server do people use and are they happy with it? (We have found Kline Communications, the one we use at present, is hard to work with if you are not a programmer). Third, Do many groups put their catalogs up on their web site? Does anyone have online course registration? Thanks everyone, for sharing your web experiences with us.

From Pat Raymer, Society for Learning Unlimited, Beloit College, WI
We have our catalog on the web site, but do not take online course registration. We do have class participants who do print the registration form and send it in. As we our part of Beloit College we are hooked into their server and tech services. We do have a web site that we are in the process of changing.

From Brian Bercier, WISE Program, Assumption College, MA
We use Dreamweaver at Assumption, and I find it very easy to work with. We did have a web designer create the shell of the site, and I’d recommend using a pro for this (unless you’re a pro at Photoshop and other things as well as web design). We have the web site on servers here on campus, and our IT folks keep those up and running, so that’s not outsourced. We have our catalog (CCE) on the web site, as does the undergraduate college, but they and Grad school also have print versions; CCE stopped printing a catalog after the 2004-05 academic year. We are awaiting a portal system here to enable online registration (in fact, we’re going to choose a new ERP, Portal, AND are going to embark on a major web site redesign in the coming year – good time for a sabbatical!)

From Patty Murrell, Veritas Society, Bellarmine University, KY
The School of Professional Studies at Bellarmine University posts its catalogs online and has online registration too. Adobe seems to offer some of the best and most user-friendly software but I believe we use "Contribute" and not "Dreamweaver" to build webpages. $200 is actually a bit below average for the cost of web development software. The Adobe CS3 packages I have seen are around $300 to $350. You can visit our website at www.bellarmine.edu/ce. Hope this helps. Thanks!

From Connie, Hodgson, OLLI, ND
I'm sorry, I have no answers to your first two questions (I'm a bit computer challenged...) however, regarding your 3rd question - our course catalog is always on our web site.

www.conted.und.edu/olli

. And yes, we have online registration also. Let me know what you think,

From Jon Neidy, ILR, Bradley University, IL
Bradley University Institute for Learning in Retirement uses Adobe Dreamweaver to manage its webpage.

www.bradley.edu/continue/ilr

. We are connected to the server at the University. Our entire catalog is listed on our website and we do offer online course registration.

From Sara Hardman, Lifetime Learning Institute, Bard College, NY
Bard College created and maintains our web site so we do not have to get involved with any of the issues that you raise. We do put our course catalogue on line for people to print out but we are currently registering by snail mail only as we do not want to deal with credit cards.

From Michael Markowitz, IRP, New School University, NY
People around here are supporters of Adobe products. I have no experience with Dreamweaver. Our Bulletin is now on line ONLY ... in PDF format. We xerox only about 150 copies in all, 100 of which are for inquiries. For the past 4 years we have admitted new students with the understanding that they will have e-addresses within 90 days. We are now down to less than a handful of people who do not use PCs. Check out last semester’s bulletin at

http://www.newschool.edu/irp/

From Joe Bingham, RISE Program, Rivier College, NH
Dr. Arthur asked me to reply to your mail. I am the RISE person primarily responsible for the RISE website. Our site is

http://www.rivier.edu/departments/rise/index.html

if you want to take a look. The design is five or so years old and it was constructed in Dreamweaver version 4. If possible the person doing the work should have the option of using the web design tools of his/her choice. We do put our catalog on line. A Rivier student designed most of the site but I am responsible for the courses section. It looks pretty good but it is not searchable and it takes a long time to prepare the images each semester. A more professional designer would have done a more professional job and would have made the page easier to update. I am considering offering the PDF version of our brochure for download. We do not have online registration. Rivier College serves our site so we do not have to be concerned with that part of the problem. Hope this is useful,

From Marcia Fleming, OLLI Program, University of Virginia
Since I had no clue regarding information on our website I went to our Webmaster for a response. Below is the information requested: Our experience is some what different because I am a retired college Webmaster and instructor of Web development. I use Adobe Dreamweaver CS3/ FireworksCS3. This is excellent, top-of-the-line web-development software that I taught in my courses to prepare my students for a minor in Web Development. There is a significant learning curve associated with using it, so it might not be for everyone. Our site is hosted on a UVa Apache server running on a UNIX platform. Again this is a top-of-the-line server with excellent performance. You do need to have some programming ability to handle this. Yes our catalog is on the site, but we do not have online registration at this time. We also will start using Constant Contact, a hosted email marketing and website software that many non-profits use to keep in touch with their members. We are going to use it for email, but there is a whole package of things that you could choose." Hope this is of assistance.

From James Tanner, Learning in Retirement, University of Georgia
We are fortunate to have the benefit of piggy-backing on the UGA server and their technical expertise for web page construction. This does however limit the appearance due to the requirement that all the web sites have some standard for a dept. We are currently exploring alternatives that might give us more flexibility and provide a more useful tool for our members.

From Sheila Place, Academy for Lifelong Learning, Cape Cod Community College, MA
We at the Cape Cod Academy for Lifelong Learning have computer services through an arrangement with Cape Cod Community College which has the hardware and software to run the college programs. Our catalog is available on line, but we do not have on line registration at this time.

From Sarah Fletcher, OLLI, Furman University, SC
This is from Sarah Fletcher, Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Furman University in Greenville, SC.

From Christine Wheeler, Frances Pew Hayes Center for Lifelong Learning, Hodges University, FL
I am not sure this response will be all that helpful. Being connected with the University the IT department handles all of our website creation and maintenance. Our website is

www.hodges.edu/lifelonglearning

. Starting with this session we have our session guide on our website in the PDF format. We are confident this will work better than the old format of just listing information. At this time we do not take on-line registration.

From Pat Mielke, SPARK, University of Missouri
I’m sorry, Trish, we cannot be of any help for you since our affiliate university handles everything. I simply give them the changes I want each semester and they take care of the rest. Our registration form is in the brochure. Folks may print it out and mail it to the office with their check when they wish to register.

From Anne M. Petty Johnson, LLI, Northern Illinois University
I'm going to answer your third question and let our webmaster answer the other two...
Yes, we post our catalogues on our website and have online registration capabilities. If you'd like to visit our site, the address is

http://www.niu.edu/clasep/lifelong/lli/index.shtml

From Monica Hughes, Lifelong Learning Institute of Chesterfield, VA
We use Adobe Contribute 4. I have used Dreamweaver in the past and like it better. The Adobe Contribute package is more limited. Our server is NetEasyInc and has been very user friendly. Our catalogs are on our website. We have not yet tried the online registration, but hope to do so in the near future. We do accept registrations through the email attachments.

From Anita Revelle, LLI, Illinois State University
Trish: Since you are affiliated with the college, have you checked to see if you can use their server and also get the Adobe from their ownership. That’s what we do here. I do have a staff member that works on my web site, but it is part of the university’s web addresses.

From Bob Carney, Center for Lifelong Learning, Inc., Fort Walton Beach, FL

From Anita Dittrich, Mankato Area Lifelong Learners, Mankato, MN
MSU for Seniors are "in the process" of changing their name to MANKATO AREA LIFELONG LEARNERS - - a process that will take a few months to finalize a new logo, etc. Computer-wise, we have NOTHING to offer to others, as our computer operator is happy with pretty old software and whatever else the MN State University Mankato has available. We will look forward to studying the responses to this inquiry before we upgrade in the future.

From Justine Butler, Center for Continuing Adult Learning, NY
Our ILR is in Oneonta, NY and we have two colleges who sponsor us. Our website is done through the State University of NY and one of our members is the webmaster. Our catalog is on line and our members can register on line. Also, our facilitators can fill out a form for a course proposal. The website is updated on a weekly basis, if needed. If you want to go on line to see how we are set up go to:

http://external.oneonta.edu/ccal/

Good luck!

From Chuck Havlicek, President, “Registration Software for Continuing Education”, 7480 Dyer Rd, Manhattan, KS 66502 - Ph. 800-925-2493 Ext 217
Deanna Eversoll shared the email about a member of EIN who was asking about online registration software. I used to work with Deanna at UNL, but have since started my own software company developing and marketing noncredit class registration software. Our products are used by a number of schools who have OLLI programs, and by several Elderhostel programs (Georgia Southwestern, University, Montana State, etc). Our web site is:

www.aceware.com

If anyone would be interested, I'd be happy to schedule a time when we might chat and perhaps I could give them a brief overview of our software suite... and they could see if it would be the type of package that might be useful for them.

From Elaine Cash/John Low, LLI, Manassas, VA
Dreamweaver is an excellent program with a mature tool set for creating and managing websites. This is the program that I use. One caveat is that there will be a learning curve for anyone who has not used it and particularly for anyone who does not have experience developing web pages. With that said, Dreamweaver ships with a number of prebuilt templates that provide for a "quick start". The $200 is probably a discounted rate, either for students or non-profits and is quite reasonable given the alternatives. As for the hosting service, I have been happy with Dream Host, (www.dreamhost.com). They have good prices and have a good set of services for interfacing with your website. It is my recommendation that we move to them for our LLI website once our current hosting service is up for renewal in August. LLI does put there catalog on the website as a downloadable PDF. We do not have online registration.

From Burt Blau, LIFE@University of Central Florida
Here are answers to the Trish O'Leary inquiries - in order:

From Gene Reiser, Institute for Retirees in Pursuit of Education, Brooklyn College, NY
We are in the process of planning to revise our web site -

irpe.brooklyn.cuny.edu

. We will probably use Dreamweaver (an older version developed under Micromedia before Adobe bought them, because that is what our host college has available. We have made some modest updates using Contribute, which is a more user-friendly sub-section of Dreamweaver. The server we use is provided by the college. I don't know anything about it. We put part of our catalog on line: info about the program and course listings and descriptions, without identifying days, times or rooms of the courses. We do not do online course registration. In fact we do not do course registration. Members sign in at the first and third class of each course. It is a possibility that we might do on-line membership applications.

From Gold LEAF Institute/Senior College, University of Maine, Farmington, ME
Our senior college uses a free website, Wikispaces.com, to post our information (see goldleaf.wikispaces.com). It is very simple and doesn’t require programming skills, but we feel it is enough to get the information out. The one drawback is that Wikispaces puts ads on the web pages that have nothing to do with us; users have the option of paying $5 per month to eliminate the ads and our organization may eventually decide to pay the fee. Information about our organization, courses, photos, etc., is posted on this website. We also make pdf copies of our registration form using free software and post it on the website (see

www.cutepdf.com

). People have to print the form, fill it out manually and mail it in -- we do not have the capability of online course registration.
If you have any questions, please let us know.

From Karen McGrath, Renesan, Santa Fe, NM
We do put our catalog, etc. online at

www.renesan.org

. We do not have online registration however, although the form is online and can be printed for a mail-in registration.

From Sharon Nelson, Learning in Retirement, Inc. Lincoln University, MO
We use SUNGUARD, which is owned by Lincoln University. Parent company is SunGuard Data Systems, Inc. Our office and classroom are on the Lincoln campus. We do post our Newsletter on the website as a pdf. This allows our members and prospective members to look at our offerings - membership, courses, travel and other activities that may be of interest. We have our membership form, and course and trip registration forms on line, but do not do registration on line. It is done mainly by mail. Our website is

http://www.lincolnu.edu/pages/799.asp

.

From Myron Pullen, OMNILORE, California State University
I am the webmaster for the Omnilore.Org web site. My name is Myron
Pullen, and the answers to your questions are as follow.

From Ruth Kreuzer, SOAR, SUNY Potsdam, NY
I am still doing the SOAR web site in Potsdam, New York:

http://www.potsdam.edu/soar

Our LLI is affiliated with SUNY Potsdam (we fall in the category of "Special Programs" in the SUNY department of "Non-Credit, Conferences and Special Programs"). Thus, SUNY Potsdam is our gateway to the Internet. SOAR was allowed to have its own web site on the SUNY site and I was allowed to manage it by special permission. The SUNY Potsdam site is all under a central "content management system" (CMS) which was professionally developed at the cost of thousands of dollars (it is being updated this summer). It runs on PHP code, which means the tools for setting up and managing our web site are all scripted and lie on the server itself - not on a home machine, i.e. I don't need to use a program such as Dreamweaver or even have to know code to use it. I can go to any computer which is online and log in with my password to the SUNY management system and change the content of the SOAR web site anywhere in the world I happen to be).

The SUNY interface is very simple so that a non-programmer can easily enter basic information by choosing from the simple commands available (commands such as: heading, subheading, text, paragraph, image, link, etc.) and just typing in the data in a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) screen. There is also the choice of entering information in "code view" which means users can program in code directly by using HTML code symbols - they can use a program such as "Dreamweaver" to develop a page and then copy and paste the code into this HTML screen. In general I use the WYSIWYG and stay within the set parameters. I work a lot with my own templates for the pages I create (i.e. I cut and paste my layouts often and then just enter the new data into them). However, since I know HTML code (basic code is not hard to learn!), I will make a few subtle changes (add background colors or increase text size, etc.) to "spruce" up the our SOAR pages so they don't look quite so "cookie cutter" to the other pages on the SUNY
Potsdam web site.

On the SOAR web site we post .pdf versions of our documents including the course booklet, registration form, SOAR newsletter, trip flyer, etc. The freeware I use for creating a .pdf document is available at:

http://www.cutepdf.com/

Currently we do not have online registration. We have been heading in that direction, however, since the university itself has such a program. There are large questions about accepting payment, etc. that need to be addressed first. We receive registrations by mail or by hand and enter requests into "ACCESS" a data management program we have on our office computer (we invested in this expensive program since at 300+ members, registration just could not be handled by people with just paper and pencils any more!). We were fortunate to have someone volunteer to set up a tailored-for-SOAR-needs program version in ACCESS for us. It generates the print outs that go to the class participants (you are registered for... you need to bring to class...etc.) and instructors (class list); it also keeps a member list and does other tasks that used to take an incredible amount of hours to do by hand.

The layout of the main page of our SOAR web site includes general information on the organization, along with specific current information for our members (such as announcements, links to forms needed), and finally a splash of color with a few picture and links to more information on upcoming or past events, members in the news, etc. We have both a web version and .pdf version of the course catalog online. Other pages include a home page for each semester. On these semester pages we have the courses listed by title, presenter, content and there are navigation cross links (by topic, course title, schedule and presenter) to individual course pages. Cross links help people navigate easily so they can find the specific information they want quickly. A special feature of our web site is that each course has its own web page on which we have the catalog information about the course and presenter, along with a picture of the presenter (if available) and links to web sites on the course topic which the presenter has suggested and/or which I provide. By the end of the semester there are often links to pictures taken (by me or by course members) in the class. The SOAR web site also includes archives of past newsletters, trips and events pictures and past semester course information.

DEVELOPING A WEB SITE FOR YOUR LLI:

There is a lot of work involved in the initial development of layout and design for a web site, but once that work is done, it is not too difficult to maintain a web site. You do need a person in charge of this initial set up process. You also need someone in charge of the site at all times - someone to keep your web site current and easy to navigate. It is helpful to have someone who knows basic HTML code or who is willing to learn. A simple site can be managed by just one person (as is my case...but I am always looking for someone to help as the SOAR site is a few steps up from simple!) The first thing to do in setting up a web site is to find out from the host university or organization if you can piggy-back (have a space) on whatever system they are using. And find out if they will provide training and support to your web manager. If not, you will have to find an outside host and/or find help and support online or from friends on how to build a web site. Even your internet provider - such as RoadRunner – will sometimes provide a small free space for making a personal web page and some tools for setting up your web site. It is a place to start, but keep in mind that web sites grow quickly in size. Thus, you will need to know the size limitations (megabytes / gigabytes, etc.) and how much extra memory space costs before you sign on with a provider. Some providers give you tools to work with; others just give you space.

Dreamweaver is a nice tool to use but it is a program resident on one computer. Keep in mind that a very simple page (with text, pictures, tables, links) can still be done by hand (i.e. can be coded in HTML). At the other end of the spectrum, you may be able to find a provider that will supply the online tools you need to create a simple page online from any computer. You can also pay web designers to create something specific for online content management for your group to use (ask around to find someone who can do this within your budget and to meet your needs); often designers are also web hosts themselves or know of reliable web host sites.

Besides needing to decide where you want to spend your money, you also need to have well in mind what you want your site to look like (what you need it to do, how you want it to grow). My suggestion is to start with the basics and then also have a plan on how you want to grow your site. Do you want online editing or do you want to upload finished files from your desktop computer? Do you want to have lots of pictures? documents? archived content? etc. (these require a lot of storage space which you might have to purchase). Do you have someone in your group to volunteer to do the work of setting up and maintaining the site? Does your group need a web site? YES! (There are a lot of good sites online for helping people learn how to create a good web site.)

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