Allegheny has launched a new website and a new internal platform to replace MyAllegheny. GatorHub will serve as the all-encompassing internal website for students, faculty and staff. GatorHub includes features such as a campus-wide events calendar, dining menu and ordering information, appointment reminders and a customizable interface for user convenience. The platform was launched in tandem with numerous teams on campus, such as marketing and communications and student experience, to formulate an interface that accurately met the needs of the community.
Chief Information Officer Katrina Yeung said she and the Information Technology team factored in student feedback when deciding what to implement into the new platform. Ultimately, a program known as Pathify was chosen, and IT worked closely with their team to make the app suited for use for Allegheny.
“GatorHub really came out of a conversation with several students when I asked how do you want to be communicated to, and their answers were something Instagram-like,” Yeung said. “It’s really meant to be an internal hub of communication with students, faculty, staff and others across the institution that has a look and feel of Instagram.”
To measure GatorHub’s success, IT currently monitors what widgets and tabs are interacted with the most by users. This shows how users are receiving and responding to information communicated through GatorHub, which is useful information for the IT team to further improve the platform.
“How I would define success is, ‘Are we communicating to more individuals across the institution in a consumable way for them?’” Yeung said. “I’ll clearly be able to see that with how much interaction we have.”
IT also factors in direct feedback by users. Under the Forms tab, users can find a feedback page where they can submit their thoughts about GatorHub for the team to employ in further updates for the platform.
“Something like this is never done,” Yeung said. “It should be continuously evolving. What I hope folks get from it is that feel of community and that we listened when they said they wanted to be interacted with in a different way.”
Executive Director of Marketing & Communications Penny Drexel stressed GatorHub’s importance for internal communication. Information such as senior project requirements, student organizations and meetings and student resources are all accessible via the platform.
“GatorHub will become our new internal tool so that students and employees can find exactly what they need,” Drexel said. “That will include information that is internal only, so departments can maintain content that doesn’t need to be on the external site, doesn’t need to be locked down, but is really important for students.”
Allegheny also launched a new external website on Oct. 17. In a campus-wide email, Vice President for Enrollment Management Jennifer Winge, ’97, announced the new website along with a page for feedback.
“The new site is a significant step towards fulfilling Goal 5 of the Allegheny Pathway: Operational and Financial Sustainability,” Winge wrote in the email. “An enhanced online experience supports our efforts to elevate the College’s profile and engage with prospective students and other external audiences in meaningful and memorable ways.”
Drexel said creating the new website required partnering with outside vendors to review the old website and build the new interface. The marketing & communications staff wanted to formulate the new website to serve prospective students and share information about academic programs.
“We know that’s where students are going to look for information these days, and for years now,” Drexel said. “So we really wanted to shift the focus, or make sure we were really focused on those prospective students and their families.”
The biggest goal was making information readily available to anyone who needed it. This includes modernizing pre-existing website features such as videos and hyperlinks, as well as streamlining content for an easier viewing experience.
“Cutting out any of the extra information and just making sure people can find things,” Drexel said. “We hear questions from prospective students, from current students, from staff, who are expecting people to be able to find what they need when they need it. So, our goal is really to make sure folks can find what they need to get their work done.”