Web Strategy and Development Blog

Meet our newest team member: Valerie Cummings

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The web strategy and development office is pleased to welcome Valerie Cummings to our staff.

Valerie comes to us from Missouri State Outreach, where she spent over 25 years as the Director of Marketing and Promotions. In this role, Valerie designed and managed the Outreach website.

She also managed various projects and marketing campaigns, and developed front end coding skills that she’ll be using in her position as front end designer/developer.

We are very excited have Valerie join our team, and look forward to all the experience and talent that she will bring.

Graduate students: Share the stories of MSU

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Our team is growing.

The marketing and communications division at Missouri State currently has three open graduate assistantships.

Are you a creative communicator who loves to tell stories? We need you to help recruit students and be a brand ambassador for the university and its programs.

Each position would give you an opportunity to get hands-on experience with marketing, promotion, writing, editing and public relations while having your education paid for.

Find the position that’s right for you.

New design for university websites

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We’re excited to announce that Missouri State University websites will soon have a fresh look. The first change comes next week on the homepage.

Our goal: to create an action-oriented experience for future Bears. The new homepage will also showcase bold video, imagery and content elements.

What’s new

All Missouri State University websites hosted in Web Press are moving to new templates.

In late April, we’ll start the transition with the release of a new homepage.

Top portion of new Missouri State University homepage.
A sneak-peak of the new homepage. The modern look includes an expansive “hero” video area.
New Missouri State University homepage on mobile view.
The new homepage on mobile view.

Other highlights on the new homepage include:

  • An admissions-focused layout. We’ve made it easier to apply, visit and donate to Missouri State.
  • A carousel of stories, centered around student success.
  • Upcoming events in an easy-to-read format, with quick links to the full calendar.
  • Bold, impactful stats that detail university accomplishments.

The new templates have other options for design layouts, too.

All MSU Web Press sites will switch to the new templates, and we will release a schedule for this move later in the year.

For questions or concerns

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact us.

Social Media Kit: Fall 2017 #BearGrads

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Missouri State University’s fall 2017 commencement ceremonies will take place at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 at JQH Arena.

Share your story

Help us celebrate #BearGrads by sharing your experience on social media. If you are graduating or attending graduation to celebrate with someone, we want to hear about it. You may even see yourself featured on Missouri State’s social media channels.

We encourage you to join the conversation before and during commencement by posting about it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and tagging your posts with the official hashtag: #BearGrads.

Make your posts social media savvy

  • Tag your posts with the official commencement hashtag: #BearGrads
  • Share your experience with us by tagging Missouri State University or @missouristate
  • Tag your posts with the Springfield, Missouri hashtag: #SGF
  • If you would like to provide a link for more information on the event, please link to http://www.missouristate.edu/commencement/fall-2017-commencement.htm
  • When you post to Facebook, boost your status update by sharing with a photo or video.
  • Nothing beats a first-hand perspective. If you attend commencement, share photos from or quotes about your experience.
  • Follow the #BearGrads conversation on Tagboard

Visual assets

Live video

Snapchat

Look for our #BearGrads geofilter on Snapchat Dec. 15 in Hammons Student Center and JQH Arena.

Commencement Snapchat geofilter example

Facebook timeline photos

Spring commencement Facebook photo Spring commencement Facebook photo Spring commencement Facebook photo Spring commencement Facebook photo

Twitter timeline photos

Spring commencement Twitter photoSpring commencement Twitter photo Spring commencement Twitter photo Spring commencement Twitter photo

Instagram photo

Spring commencement Instagram photo

GIFs

Download and share GIFs from Missouri State’s GIPHY channel.

Digital wallpapers

Add #BearGrads digital wallpaper to your desktop or phone screen.

Sample social media posts

  • Congratulations to our #BearGrads! We’re proud of you!
  • Can’t make it to commencement? Watch the ceremonies live online at YouTube #BearGrads
  • #BearGrads has a new member, and it’s my (son, daughter, friend, etc.) (@TagThePerson).
  • What’s your favorite college memory? Share using #BearGrads.
  • Graduating on Friday? Share your photos from the day using #BearGrads.
  • Explore what our #BearGrads have to say about commencement day: http://bit.ly/1Hlgn1C. Join the conversation with #BearGrads

All New Search Site Launched

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search_desktopThe university search site has been redesigned. This high traffic site has long been central resource and is one of our most visited pages. After over a year of development the site has been redesigned to have a modern search experience and to incorporate search results from many different sources.

Core Technologies

The site was rewritten to use the latest HTML5 APIs including the history api (making changing search results extremely fast). The site itself was designed using our new mobile templates and showcases how results can translate between desktops, tablets and phones. Our new search is powered by all new hardware which even further improves the site response rates.

Web search

Web site searches are the core of the university navigation. We have extended these searches to showcase results from other datasets. Websites are now crawled every night and old content is removed nightly as well.

People search

Completely powered by the directory system used throughout the academic web sites, people search results now show photos in the search results. In addition, search results can be filtered by campus or by role.

Event search

The master calendar is now showcased within the search results and events can be returned as part of a web search or all by themselves.

Multi-campus layouts

West Plains and Mountain Grove now each have their own search site utilizing the same technologies as the Springfield campus search site.

Site credits

  • Design: Chris Austin, Web designer
  • Implementation: Chad Killingsworth, assistant director of Web and new media; and Kyle Falconer, web works student programmer