At Home on the Web

Editor's Note: At Home on the Web is a regular feature of the IT Times. If you have a Web site you would like featured in the column, send email to ietpubs@ucdavis.edu.

At Home on the Web Index

This month, "At Home on the Web" features a single site, from the Aquaculture and Fisheries Program. In addition to the description, we offer a perspective on the site from those responsible for creating it.

Aquaculture and Fisheries Program

http://aquafishprog.ucdavis.edu/

The Center for Special Programs serves as an umbrella for related programs that focus on a specific subject or species. Each of the current programs -- Aquaculture & Fisheries, the Center for Animal Welfare, the Center for Avian Biology, the Center for Range and Forested Ecosystems, and the Contained Research Facility Project -- brings together a diverse group of University faculty and researchers. To better disseminate information about each of these programs, administrative support staff Jan Campbell and Nicole Gibson teamed up with Rob Brower of Web Design Services to design and implement a series of individualized Web sites.

"Jan and I had specific ideas about layout, design, and content of the Aquaculture and Fisheries Program (AFP) Web site, but we needed a professional Web design person to make our ideas work," says Nicole Gibson. "Neither of us had the time or knowledge to put our ideas on the Web, and we didn't want to take HTML classes. On the introductory page, we wanted a series of buttons in the form of graphics illustrating the content of the pages they linked to." The pictures were transformed from Microsoft Publisher files to HTML documents. The text is based upon existing documents produced over the lifespan of the AFP (20 years). "We wanted to convey the background of the programs, related research, services offered, useful information and links for the general public, and resources for prospective UC Davis students," says Gibson.

A home page for the Center for Special Programs eventually will link together the sites for the five programs, allowing new sites to be added in the future.