Cleaning the Cobwebsite

Sometimes I feel like YU is stuck in the past.

No, I refer not to the antiquated 1920's-gangster dress and Eastern European intonations of our esteemed Rashei Yeshiva, nor to the neo-ugly style brickwork of many Wilf campus edifices. The past that we can't leave behind us is not a distant one: sometimes four years ago, sometimes last year, or sometimes even last month. The YU website, which should be the nexus of our information network and provide the most current YU-info, simply fails at this most important task.

Yes, the pictures of the beautiful NYC vistas and pretty Stern girls are nice, but under this facade lies a labyrinthine network of red herrings, trapdoors, and outdated information. If one didn't know any better, he or she would think that Jewish Studies are still run by Rabbis Charlap and Shmidman, Daniel Stokar is still president of YSU, that faculty and student requests for new honors courses should be submitted to leewill@yu.edu, that Dr. David Berger's office is still on the fifth floor (as listed in the directory), and that the history major is still only thirty credits. I'm sure that Jewish Studies Dean Rabbi Yona Reiss, current YSU president Daniel Buckingolts, honors director Dr. Joanne Jacobson, the graduate student desperately seeking the Dean of Bernard Revel Graduate School, and the three-credits-short history major don't appreciate this. Even the computer science department website isn't immune from this informational inertia: four out of six professors listed there no longer teach at YC.

And this is only a small sampling of the vast misinformation which is brought about by net-neglect. There are any number of mistakes on the website, and with – as noted by an article in last year's Commentator – over 500 million (!) hits a year who knows how many are misled every day? We must also consider all those who don't get any information at all, due to the site's poor organization and even poorer search algorithm.

Curiously enough, we know that YU can update the website when they really put their minds to it; a brief flurry blew over the blogosphere when it was discovered that YU had purged all eighty-six instances of Bernard Madoff's name from their website. Though the merits and honesty of this action is debatable, it is certainly understandable that no upstanding institution would want to be connected to such a reprehensible individual. What is clear, though, is that YU has the means to change a large number of web pages in very short span of time, leaving little excuse for the Bible department page to continue to display its 2004 course list.

To be fair, some divisions and departments have taken their cue from Barack Obama and moved into the Internet age: the newly-minted English department website is both thorough and aesthetically pleasing, even including an inspiring mission statement from its chair (I was pleasantly surprised to find myself quoted in this message, but that is neither here nor there). Others have begun to move in the right direction, but still require some guidance. Bernard Revel Graduate School (BRGS), for example, recently took their website from The Original Series to The Next Generation. Unfortunately, as any good Trekkie could tell you, advancing from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth centuries brought with it massive increases in technology and performance, while BRGS's upgrade consisted of nothing more than a makeover. The page still sports several dead links and the Spring 2009 schedule hasn't been totally filled in; in fact, it is exactly the same website as before, just with a different color scheme.

While last year's transfer of the website from ITS to PR is discouraging in this respect, I cannot stress strongly enough the priority that must be given to function over fashion. The planning and administration of the YU website needs a paradigm shift, and what follow are some directions that should be considered:

1. The Yesod haYesodot (foundation) of any good website is updatability. Last year, one teacher/administrator commented to me that the website is as out-of-date as it is because she and her colleagues have no idea how to change it. As we are dealing with a varied group, any such system must be idiot-proof and legible to even the most computer-illiterate.

2. Accountability and protocol must be laid down and enforced. Whose job is it in each office and department to update all pertinent information and policy changes? Is there a system in place to ensure that this person gets the information?

3. Listen to the students. As with all areas relating to quality of life and user-friendliness, seek feedback from those who must actually deal with your product on a daily basis. It is not well known that Communications requested the formation of a panel of student experts from last year's Student Life Committee (the same guys who brought you the soda-bottle-opening air fresheners in the bathrooms) to fill such an advisory role. The panel was formed, met with the appropriate administrators, and subsequently ignored.

4. Convenience is king. The most-used and most important resources should be the easiest to find and access. Currently, a YC student uses no fewer than ten clicks of the mouse to look up next semester's schedule. In a related vein, anything that can be online, should be. For example, Wilf campus should look to our sisters at Beren and set up an online advising appointment scheduler, eliminating the seasonal trek to the apogean Laurel Hill Terrace and frustrating paper-based search for an open slot.

5. People like cookies (not the ones in the caf – they're too expensive, and fattening to boot). I've lost track of how many times (not that I was actually counting, it's a figure of speech) I've had to type in my RAC number as I've figured out my schedule, and renewing a book on the library website needn't take as long as it does. Students should be able to access a website from the same computer without having to re-enter user name information, a la Google's (a company we should seek to emulate as much as possible) “Remember me on this computer.”

6. Combine our cookies into a cake. Although the use of cookie dough as cake batter has been tried to varied results, here we have nothing to lose. Like a physicist dreaming of a Grand Unified Theory, I dream of the day when we can log onto MY YU, Angel, the YULIS website, YUMS, the YU computers, and the YU printing system with one name or number.

I'll conclude with the end of a letter I published in last year's Commentator concerning this issue, whose message, although a bit harsh in tone and tenor, still applies:

“I don't know who's in charge of these things (perhaps the root of the entire problem), but the situation is moving from irresponsible to downright inconsiderate. After a posting on the Senate website (available at http://yusenate.wordpress.com/2007/11/15/course-catalog-conflict/), a Commy article, and much general disgruntlement, the YU website continues to maintain dated history major information...

The entire incident questions the administration's commitment to its students. Change requires time, especially on as large a scale as a university. But when something as simple as changing a few lines of HTML isn't taken care of, it makes one wonder whether the issue is time . . . or concern.”

Julian Horowitz is opinions editor for The Commentator