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American University Launches Web 2.0 Site

Posted on: Tuesday, 31 March 2009, 08:00 CDT

Dynamic, interactive multimedia components provide enhanced user experience

WASHINGTON, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- American University has launched a new, redesigned Web site at www.american.edu featuring interactive, multimedia capabilities that provide dynamic content with state-of-the-art Web 2.0 communication.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090331/DC91604 )

The site features tagged and linked content including news, success stories and profiles, site-wide global navigation, a virtual campus tour, user-generated content through a wiki system called AUpedia, and a university master calendar. Each component is implemented with a consistent integrated design, look, and feel for an enhanced user experience.

"Our new site represents the promise of a new way of reaching many audiences, particularly prospective students," said Terry Flannery, executive director of communications and marketing at AU. "It will be the front door of our university for those coming to us for the first time and allow people to access the university from points near and far."

DiscoverAU with its "Virtual Campus Experience," produced and streamed by Realview TV, is the site's cornerstone and pushes the boundaries of innovation for college videos and virtual tours. An interactive 3-D map, "My Five Faves" videos, and an InsideAU view enable the university to connect to its audience through a medium that all students crave -- online video.

This Web 2.0 development is the result of a two-year campus-wide collaborative process, led by an expert group of leaders from the university's information technology and marketing communication areas. Assisted by more than 125 people in 20 departments across the university, AU's team spent 25,000 hours to create and redesign the 7,500 pages migrated for launch.

The university turned to the New York-based firm HUGE to analyze the current site and produce a new vision based on the user's experience and not the institution's organizational chart. HUGE produced a complete visual and structural redesign that incorporated the university's brand and sub brands and provided the shared tools needed for consistent delivery.

"From day one, HUGE shared AU's commitment to raise the bar for higher education Web sites by developing an authentic, transparent online experience that truly surfaces the student voice. We focused on developing a template, modular system for AU which gives the school the flexibility to communicate with its audience in a very direct, open way," says Aaron Shapiro, partner at HUGE.

To create the site's functionality, AU turned to content management company PaperThin, Inc. and Web technology consultant firm, North Highland. PaperThin's content management product, CommonSpot(TM), makes creating and sharing content and site management easier. North Highland assisted with the mapping and planning of content to be used across departments within the university.

In a first for AU, and rare among other universities, the site was tested pre-launch under a simulated load of thousands of concurrent users to optimize performance of the site before going live. In addition, AU's Office of Information Technology upgraded bandwidth in anticipation of increased demand coming from the multimedia and dynamic content components.

SOURCE American University

Source: PR Newswire

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