Site Launched at the “Campus of Tomorrow”

LAWRENCEVILLE (September 15, 2008) — After months of focus groups, market research and painstaking interviews with students, community leaders and the public, Georgia Gwinnett College launched its new Web site today at 1 p.m. ‘Grizzly-Time.’ Following a sneak peak to faculty, staff and students on Friday and a second-by-second countdown, the new Web site – www.ggc.usg.edu – was released.

“This has been an exciting project for the advancement team and numerous other involved people and groups in the GGC family,” says Jennifer Stephens, director of Marketing and Public Affairs, and the overseer of the Web development process. “Hundreds of hours of research and design work went into the effort; and we think it has paid off.”

Stephens said that the college brought a consulting company into the project to assist the Advancement team in redesigning the site.

“We looked at a number of companies that were involved in nationally-rated Web projects, and ultimately selected one that we felt was the best in the business,” she said. The company, Engauge Digital, is based in Atlanta, and its clients include TiVo, The Home Depot, UPS, Sony and The Coca-Cola Company. “We are delighted with their performance and believe that, combined with the talents of our Advancement team, we have an excellent product.”

One of the key players involved in gathering the research to create the new site was Dr. Melissa Read, vice president of Research and Innovation for Engauge, who specializes in behavioral psychology and once served as a faculty member in the University System of Georgia. 

“We combine sound science with insight into human behavior to design research programs, analyze data, and turn findings into actionable marketing and user-experience strategy,” says Read. “This was an exciting project for us in helping to define the Web experience for users at this new college in Georgia.”

Stephens noted that the Web site employs an innovative means of information gathering from the various schools and departments at the college. 

“As we grow in enrollment and function, the Web site becomes a rather vast and complex information source, expanding by magnitudes each year. As an alternative to hiring new Web site staff, we want managers across the college to be able to control the data they want on the internet. Therefore, we are using a content management system, Joomla, which will allow faculty, staff and administrators to edit and update their own data.” 

Stephens said that people across campus make their own changes and updates to the server ultimately with the approval of a Web manager in her office. 

“The new technology enables us to make everything on the site more accurate and up-to-date, and it streamlines the process tremendously.”

Stephens also stated that one of the challenges of the project was attempting to visualize how the Web site for “the campus of tomorrow” would look and function. With this, she indicated that the development team was willing to explore Flash, image changing techniques, You Tube-type communication and other video/audio messaging. 

“Working with Engauge, we compared our needs with dozens of other Web sites including those from other colleges, the retail world, political campaigns, and non-profits. With the ability to freely move between all these fields, and pick and choose concepts of value, we were able to create something we feel is unique,” she noted, adding that the communication and marketing elements of the site will grow dramatically during the coming year.

She also stated that functionality was an important part of the process.

“What you see and feel on a Web site obviously is critical to its success and we tried to create a clean, uncluttered look. However, the real achievement had to be the useful elements of the site to the user. We designed elements of the site for all our users; however, we hope that there is a marketing flair for all concerned. The site represents an opportunity for the college to demonstrate everything we have to offer.”

Says Gordon Harrison, vice president for Advancement at GGC: “We are in a new era of marketing, communication and functionality over the Internet. We think this new Web site accomplishes, in an outstanding fashion, information flow to and from our many publics.”