When the Office of Public Affairs launched the UC Berkeley NewsCenter, way back in ’02, it was ahead of the pack as a one-stop source for news about the university. In recent years, however, the pack has moved on, and we have not. We’re about to do something about that, with this spring’s “NewsCenter 2.0″ redesign project.
Our goals are fairly simple: to present the news of UC Berkeley to our various audiences, on campus and off, in a way that is clear, comprehensive, lively and attractive. To do this, we’ll be investigating the many communications tools that have spring up over the past eight years — things like YouTube, RSS feeds, dynamic pages, Twitter and more.
Last fall’s budget-driven demise of the Berkeleyan newspaper added impetus to our need to rebuild and reorganize the NewsCenter, particularly for staff and faculty who are a core part of the campus community. The new e-newsletter, launched last month, gives you a weekly way to stay abreast of the top campus news. We expect that the new NewsCenter, when it debuts (fingers crossed) this spring, will do the same thing on a daily basis. But to get there, we need your help.
This blog, which will chronicle our research, ideas and progress toward a new NewsCenter, is open to comments, and we hope you will chime in with your thoughts and suggestions about the things you’d like to see on the NewsCenter, and about the content and design decisions we’ll be making over the next several months. We’ll also be distributing an online survey, conducting quick user polls, and holding brainstorming sessions on campus to solicit your feedback. And you can always send your suggestions to newscenter@berkeley.edu.
Please don’t hesitate to let us know what you think. While we can’t promise that your idea will make the final cut, nor to answer every piece of mail we receive, we can promise that we’ll read it all, and give it due consideration as we strive to create a NewsCenter that lives up to UC Berkeley’s position as a premier public university.
Hi,
While I understand that the newscenter is aimed at a broader audience than just folks on campus, I would like to propose that the occasional significant IT news be published through the newscenter. While not every IT announcement is appropriate, I would like to see at least a link to the big announcements that will have major impact on the campus community. If there could be a liaison or collaboration with the IST news folks, I think it would be a good thing for campus.
Thanks-
-Jay
Jay: We do this now on occasion, publishing links to BC&C stories, but we can aim to do a better job of getting out significant IT news. And we’ll especially work on organizing the various kinds of news on the NewsCenter so that those readers likely to be interested in campus IT news will have a better chance of seeing it there.
Thanks for the suggestion.