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The nine colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District have been redesigning their Web sites to be more standardized and accessible, increasing functionality for all students and staff while maintaining individuality amongst the colleges. Utilizing OmniUpdate, a web content management service, the reconstruction of the Web sites will bring the same format to each LACCD college so that somebody browsing one college’s site will be able to access another college’s site the same way. The Web sites will have different color schemes, content and pictures pertinent to each college, but the general structure and navigation style will be the same. The decision to undertake this project starting last fall was largely attributed to Darroch “Rocky” Young, former chancellor of the LACCD. Chancellor Marshall “Mark” Drummond also endorses the update. Daphne Congdon, executive assistant to the chancellor, is in charge of the District Web Task Force, a group made up of one technically-qualified member from each college to collaborate on the project. Congdon explained the unity across the district that the update will instill. “If a student goes to another college in the district, we want them to feel like they are in the same family,” Congdon said. “There are nine Web sites out there, some good, some bad, some super bad,” said Congdon. “We revised the sites to what we thought students want to see in a Web site, and came up with a design.” Gonzalo Mendoza, manager of college information systems at East Los Angeles College, further explained the standardization. “Without OmniUpdate, all the sites have a different look and feel,” said Mendoza. “If you are a student at one of these nine colleges, you should find what you are looking for in the same place. You shouldn’t be looking around trying to find things.” Mendoza said that completion of the Web site redesigning is about five months behind. According to Congdon, the reason for the delay in completion is due to the fact that the LACCD paid very close attention to detail when choosing a vendor, settling with OmniUpdate only after all choices had been considered. The update will help some of the less user-friendly Web sites get up to speed. The Los Angeles Mission College Web site, currently running the OmniUpdate template, condenses its front page in a way that involves very little scrolling, if any. The front page of the Los Angeles Valley College Web site requires the user to scroll down a sidebar with 46 options. Congdon said that content-update issues and inconsistencies on the Web sites should be minimized by OmniUpdate because the webmasters will be given tools to check the last time a page was updated, as well as detect broken links. This feature will benefit students by assuring that phone numbers lead to the right offices and links point to the correct content. OmniUpdate will also make editing the Web site something that all the staff can do, instead of limiting access to Information Technology specialists. The Web site for Los Angeles Mission College is already fully operational with the new OmniUpdate system. Eric Rettke, computer and network support specialist at Los Angeles Mission College, commented on the ease of Web page editing by non-technical staff.”One of the really cool things about OmniUpdate is that it reduces complexity,” Rettke explained. “Before you had to put an IT request in to change a typo, but now the Web site can be treated like a word processor.” Pierce College will be the last college in the district to receive the update.-30-