In addition, like all other aspects of information technology (IT), the tools and best practices for websites are rapidly changing, and staying at the forefront of these developments can be challenging.

I am pleased to report that by leveraging UB’s new Content Management System (UBCMS) and a unique partnership between University Communications, the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Computer and Information Technology, UB’s Information Technology website has been completely redesigned with an emphasis on better meeting the needs of the entire UB community. Similarly, the website for the Center for Computational Research has been redesigned and implemented in the UBCMS. 

It’s important to note that the new websites are not merely the result of providing a “fancier wrapper” around the existing content, but rather rethinking the way we deliver content and optimizing it for dissemination on the Web. New features include:

• Dashboard view of UBIT’s critical service statuses, based on UBIT Alerts
• IT tips tailored for students, faculty and staff
  
• Targeted, section-wide search engines can be easily added. For example, on the UBIT website, there is a search engine that only searches within IT Policy descriptions.
• Hosting sites in the UBCMS reduces the frequency of broken links. If the location of a webpage within the site changes, the system will automatically update all links pointing to it.

I hope you will find our new websites helpful and well-designed. While we have gone to great lengths to ensure all links are up-to-date, links outside the UBIT and CCR sites may need updating. Please let us know whenever this occurs so we can address it promptly. I also strongly encourage you to use the feedback forms on each webpage, which will help us continue improving our content and how it’s delivered to you.

While this effort involved many IT professionals, I want to especially acknowledge the efforts of Rick Lesniak, Linda Kingsbury, Dennis Reed Jr., Valerie Priester, Bethany Gladkowski, Kevin Kydd and Dori Sadjak.

Of course, improving our websites is not the only thing occupying CIT and the Nodes over the past several months.  Indeed, as this newsletter shows, we have been quite busy working on virtual PCs in public labs, plans for IPv6, improvements in VoIP, and much more.

I hope you find the information in this newsletter useful. As always, we look forward to comments and suggestions for future topics, as well as feedback on IT services and initiatives.