Visitors to the College of Human Ecology Web site at http://www.humec.cornell.edu can now see a new design, integrated with the look of the university's front page. Behind the scenes there is new technology that allows for dynamic, continuous update of the site's content.

The new site, which went "live" Oct. 27, represents more than a year of planning and effort. It was built by the Instructional and Web Services division of Cornell Information Technologies (CIT).

"The launch of Human Ecology's new Web site is an exciting milestone for our entire college community," said Lisa Staiano-Coico, the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the college. "The Web is such an essential medium, and our Web site is truly our face to the world. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to introduce our faculty, staff and students to a whole new audience. We're now able to show the world what Human Ecology has to offer and how valuable our work is in communities around the world."

The Human Ecology site is the first complete site on campus to use the university's recently adopted CommonSpot content management system, which allows designated users throughout the college to update pages easily, without any special knowledge of Web technology. The software was developed by PaperThin, a privately held Massachusetts-based company

"CommonSpot was the prime candidate because they wanted to have a lot of dynamic content," said Franck Vidal, who managed the project for CIT. "For the content providers it's going to be a godsend."

The site showcases five departments and 14 other centers, institutes and programs, including the Division of Nutritional Sciences, whose site -- the only exception to CIT's involvement -- was built by Spider Graphics of Ithaca. There also are overview sections for admissions, academics, research, outreach and extension, college administration and alumni affairs. Vidal noted that someone in each department or organization will be responsible for that unit's content. Overall supervision is handled by Mark Vorreuter, the college webmaster.

"The use of CommonSpot has allowed users to be more current in updating their pages," Vorreuter said. "In the past, users saw updating the Web as a task they had to do along with all their other tasks, and if you had 20 things to do, you did the least favorite last. We've worked hard to create a community of users in the college through training and regular meetings with a core of 30 or 40 users in the college, and now they feel that there is a camaraderie of the Web."

Planning for the Human Ecology site, the first online update for the college in about six years, began in September 2004, with extensive discussions throughout the college. The design phase, Vidal said, took 1,100 hours, including the presentation of four intermediate design proposals to the dean and to a college focus group. The final design was approved in March, followed by about 4,000 hours of production work, Vidal said. Finally, members of Vorreuter's "community" throughout the college spent about three weeks updating content.

The site was launched with about 1,075 pages and some 300 photos, plus 500 documents available for download in PDF format. One hundred sixty new photos were shot for the update.

The CIT group's work consisted mainly of building templates for the CommonSpot system, Vidal explained. CommonSpot templates determine the design and style of a Web page. Users can add text and photos to a page by copying and pasting their material into online forms, without worrying about design and without the danger of accidentally changing the look of the page. The result can be passed through an approval process before going live. In this case, Vorreuter said, approval is mostly at the department level.

The university purchased a license to use the CommonSpot system in December 2004, after an extensive review of several competing content management systems by the Office of Web Communications. It is available to any unit of the university.

Human Ecology's training in the use of CommonSpot started in June, Vorreuter said. "One of the key ingredients for success in the training," he added, smiling, "was having candy."