A team of University personnel is working on changes to the main Tufts Web site, but progress is slow.
This past summer, Director of Web Communications Pete Sanborn was assigned a team of seven to make the Web site more efficient and user-friendly. The changes are also being synchronized with outside consultant Mark Neustadt's proposals for a unified marketing strategy for the University.
"We are trying to eliminate the reliance on 'search' to browse through the site," Web Content Specialist Georgiana Cohen said.
Sanborn was not available for comment.
Senior Java Developer Inga Milner said the team began creating a static template for the site's design over the summer. "That has been outsourced already to another company," she said.
The University hired Boston-based Stoltze Designs. "We chose him because we liked his portfolio of work, his simplicity of style and his knowledge of web designing," Vice President for University Relations Mary Jeka said. "He was also given very good references."
Cohen said Sanborn's team worked with designers to model the site after the template.
But a couple of months ago, the Stoltze Designs template was rejected by Neustadt, University President Lawrence Bacow and Jeka, according to Milner.
A couple of years ago Tufts made a major investment in a system called Content Management, Milner said. "The system is used to update content on the Web site," she said. "Only a limited number of people are able to add, edit, delete and archive the content."
The system is not the biggest problem - no decision has yet been made on a template.
Despite the stumbling blocks, change is expected soon. "There will be little tiny changes going on throughout the year," Cohen said. Bigger changes, she said, will come by next year.
