The offices of the Registrar and Web and new media recently collaborated to redesign the 2013-14 Undergraduate Catalog. The redesign includes the following organizational improvements:
- Simplified search function sorts by college or department, program or course offering.
- Faculty member listings link to the People Search results.
- College home pages list all available programs within the college.
- Minors are grouped on the same page as majors within each program of study.
- Accelerated master’s programs are identified with the symbol on each department page.
- Prerequisites, credit/contact hours and periodicity are easier to find within course descriptions.
- Course descriptions link to the new Projected Course Offerings tool.
These changes communicate the information students and prospective students need in a more straightforward manner.
The new format also makes maintenance and review easier for academic website editors. Rather than being listed in a single unit, program information is now segmented into logical sections, making updates more manageable.
As an added bonus, these additional segments constitute additional links within each program. Since the quantity of links affects how search engines rank webpages, those extra links will boost your program’s ranking in generic search results, which means it’s easier than ever to Follow Your Passion, Find Your Place.