New UA Home Page, Daily Headlines Debut

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas will debut a new look for its Web home page and its daily campus news e-service, Daily Headlines, Saturday, April 9.

 “With the tremendous growth that has occurred on campus, the time was right to update the university’s two most visible communications tools,” said Susan Rogers, associate vice chancellor for University Relations. “We listened to our readers who wanted a shortened e-mail version of Daily Headlines and a more visually compelling home page. The University Relations staff has invested many hours in redesign and review with selected consumers of these services to offer improvements to the campus and our readers everywhere.”

Roy Cordell, assistant director of University relations, said, “The new home page is designed to meet ADA accessibility guidelines while presenting a more organized and professional appearance for our many audiences.”

The new home page complies with Arkansas Act 1227 which requires that all information technology must be readily accessible by nonvisual means. It also allows for greater flexibility in the number and types of hyperlinks available on this, the university's "front door" in cyberspace.

The images atop the new page represent a sampling of those in a web-based “slide show” that includes information about university life, research and traditions, showcasing the campus’ visual appeal and spotlighting faculty and student achievements. 

The page also offers a feature called “UA to Z,” an alphabetical listing of Web sites linked to university-related pages. The listing is maintained by University Relations.  Individuals or campus entities desiring inclusion in the list should address an e-mailed request with a link to their UA-related site to the webmaster at http://pigtrail.uark.edu/mastermailer.html.

Both the homepage and the new Daily Headlines are created in RedDot, the campuswide content-management system.

Gina King, managing editor of periodicals and Daily Headlines’ editor, explained that the changes in headlines were prompted in part by many readers’ distaste for the large quantity of items to sort through in the long e-mail versions of the service.

“I think our readers will find the new Daily Headlines much easier to read and more conveniently sorted so that they can quickly find items of particular interest to them. They will still get an e-mail but it will only contain the top three or four stories of the day and links to direct them to the Daily Headlines site,” King continued. “For our readers who want all the new news all in one place - a one-stop spot to read all the news of that day - there  is a link called the Daily Digest that is similar to the old version.”

Created in 1997 by the Office of University Relations and produced every Monday through Friday, Daily Headlines is intended to create a more inclusive and informed working environment. Its purpose is to report on official news of the UA campus: timely research, student and faculty accomplishment, events, training and recreational opportunities and important information distributed as a service primarily to the campus community.

Daily Headlines began with 1,000 subscribers. By 2000, more than 25,000 subscribers received Daily Headlines, and it had become a campus staple. Today, it remains the daily source of campus information for the entire campus community and many readers beyond the geographical boundaries of campus.

“The success of Daily Headlines has really increased the volume of news items submitted,” King said. “In its old e-mail form, readers might have scrolled through seven or eight screens to read the entire contents. Many found it not only cumbersome but also visually unappealing. We hope the new version will keep the best qualities of the old and add improvements that readers want.”

The following are Content Categories for Daily Headlines:

News: Current and timely news releases of wide interest to the media, campus community and the general public about the U of A, its accomplishments and the accomplishments of students, faculty and staff.

Research and Expertise: News about significant campus research and expertise (scholarly research, discoveries, etc.) that promotes and distinguishes the University of Arkansas as a nationally competitive research university serving Arkansas and the world.

Students: News and information for and about UA students that promote the University of Arkansas as a student-centered institution.

Faculty: News and information for and about UA faculty including information on grants, awards, distinctions, presentations, publications and appointments.

Staff: News and information for and about UA staff members that can include information on promotions, honors, awards, employee graduations, presentations by staff or their departments and other news of interest.

Fund Raising: News about private gift support to campus.

Alumni: News and information about alumni and their accomplishments.

Athletics: News and information from the UA men’s and women’s athletic departments.

Reminders: Announcements and pertinent information that may affect your day. This is an important new category of news. These are items that can potentially affect your day, and usually are of interest to the entire campus community. Information you might find here includes items such as road or sidewalk closings, important computer maintenance updates and more.

Events: News and information on academic, cultural and other events that occur on the UA campus or are sponsored by the U of A and held off-campus for the campus community and the general public.

Recreation: News and information generated by the U of A for students, faculty and staff about recreational activities available (ex. ice skating trip, canoeing, etc.).

Training: News and information on non-academic training opportunities for students, faculty and staff that can include news from UA Human Resources, University IT Services, Continuing Education and other units.

Campus Calendar: This link will connect the user to various UA departmental campus calendars.

Submit Info: This link will direct you to a form to submit items for Daily Headlines inclusion.

In Print and On Air: A look at the places UA people are showing up in print and on the air.

Comments: This section gives readers a chance to comment on any issues about Daily Headlines or other campus issues.

To submit an item for Daily Headlines, please go to the Daily Headlines Web home page and simply click on the “submit info” button along the lower left rail.  As always, items must be submitted no later than noon the day before the first requested appearance. All items submitted are subject to editorial review and approval.

“In this new version of Daily Headlines, you may request that we run your item more than one day, and it will stay up until the event is over, something a lot of readers have asked for in the past,” King said. “Another new feature is that images can also be submitted for consideration in Headlines. I think after the campus gets used to the new version, they will be very pleased with Headlines.”

These services will continue to evolve as part of an overall effort to make better use of the Web as a communication tool and to present the university more effectively, said Rogers.

“We encourage feedback from subscribers and users of these pages, which represent many hours of effort on the part of a small and dedicated team of designers and editors,” she said. “It is a pleasure to unveil their work, which is the beginning of a more concentrated emphasis on this aspect of the university’s communication outreach. We expect the home page and Daily Headlines to continue to evolve and improve.”

View the new home page at http://www.uark.edu/; click on the Daily Headlines link to see the new online version of it.