Direction from Vice Chancellor of NEGST

Dr. Carew,

Thank you for providing the vision and push for this project, and for getting in contact with Ed. It is exciting to get a chance to work on such a project from the beginning. To re-state a bit what is in your last email, it may be helpful to think about the different parts of the site from an audience perspective.

I have been involved in building two public internet sites, and can offer assistance in that area. My previous experience is mainly in “ergonomics” (making things easy to find with few clicks, streamlined design that is not distracting and that doesn’t require a lot of scrolling, etc) and in writing.

I have not worked much at all with intranet sites, especially with the technical functionalities there, but I look forward to learning more about it from Ed.

Public Internet site, audience is everyone. Site managed by C&D, in coordination especially with IT and admissions:
Pretty photos revolving on front page
News: student, alumni, faculty, program updates, donor and other news. All news can be compiled once per month into an e-newsletter, to which people can subcribe.
Submit a news item function (especially for alumni news)
Search the site function
Online donation function
Fund development information
Admissions, including online application forms, submission of application forms, housing application
Information about us: location, vision, mission, statement of faith, descriptions of all academic programs, information about extension and on-campus cohorts, faculty information, student life information
Manage membership in the website: as an alumni, current student, donor and sign up to receive specific news items

Members-only sub-sites, not seen by the general public:

Current student site. Once put in place, sites managed by academic and administrative personnel, with strong IT involvement:
E-Learning and distance learning
E-mail access, even for off-campus students
Online access to grades, records, financial statements
Online course registration
Library access: opac etc.
Payment of fees
Student Council info

Alumni site. Managed by C&D. :
Set up alumni groups by region, by topic of study, search of alumni, edit profile (current job position, etc). I don’t know what privacy laws in Kenya or other countries may have an effect on this.
Make a donation function (again)

?? Donor site. Managed by C&D in coordination with the VC’s office.
Special updates on how the projects funded by donors are progressing. Vision for new projects—more detailed information given than what is on the general site.

Administrative site. Once in place, each section managed by the respective administrative team:
Integrated Management Information System
Each administrative function can provide specifications as to what additional online functions are needed for their department. (Given the small numbers of staff in each department, I would guess that these will be somewhat minimal and could be handled by a normal local area network, other than what is already mentioned above as services for the other audiences. Unless we start having staff working at other locations.)

Thanks again,

Subject: Web site

Here are some of my off-hand thoughts on what functions I would like to see on the website.

Douglas

Dynamic rather than static site
E-Learning
Distance learning
Fund development and online donations
Student Service: Online access to grades, records, financial statements
Online Course registration
Alumni services
Recruitment: Online application forms, submission of application forms;
Admissions
Integrated Management Information System
Marketing and Recruitment
Library access: opac etc.
External (off-campus) access to services through a secure portal: library, emails, etc.
Housing application
Site to register presence and provide services for internal and external publics
Fees payment

Divide into different functions: Academic; Administrative; Student Services; Communication and Development


Vice-Chancellor
Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology
P. O. Box 24686
Karen, 00502
Nairobi, Kenya
www.negst.edu