New dal.ca launches

The new Dalhousie homepage

Just after 9:30 p.m. last night, Dalhousie’s web team—assembled together in their Robie Street office—pressed the "go button" on the new dal.ca.

There wasn’t literally a "go button," of course, but the event still marked the culmination of almost two years of intense work. Starting today, visitors will find a new homepage, reworked navigation and over 700 pages of rewritten, reorganized and redesigned content.

"Our aim has been to position Dalhousie's public website as the primary source of information for our students, prospective and current," explains Dwight Fischer, Assistant Vice-President, Information Technology Services. "We wanted to break away from what we call ‘org-chart-itis’: web navigation and content that reflects our internal university structure rather than what our audiences seek from our web pages. And we committed ourselves to web writing best practices, making our online content simpler, more concise and functional."

Mr. Fischer says this milestone would not have been possible without lots of behind-the-scenes work, including the selection of a new university-wide content management system, the approval of new web guidelines and policies, the establishment of a web governance structure and the creation of the web team itself.

(Read "Web makeover reveal" for more on the goals of the web relaunch.)

For an overview of some of the most significant changes, visit the "What's New" page. The web team also welcomes your thoughts via the feedback tool in the lower-right corner of many of the new pages. If you find an error, want to recommend a change or have general compliments or concerns about the new site, click the red "Give Feedback" icon and let the web team know.