The Webmaster

Donnell Wyche's official title at Wooster - other than student - is Campus-Wide Information Systems Administrator. It's much easier for faculty, staff, and students to refer to him simply as the "Webmaster". Here, in his own words, is how he came to be known by that name.

At times, I look back and wonder if I knew what I was getting myself into. I certainly had no idea in December of 1994, the first time I explored the World-Wide Web using my roommate's computer. At first, I thought the Web was boring, but maybe that was because all I could find was the White House.Being from D.C., seeing the White House was not that big a deal.

Just 5 months later, in May of 1995, I was hired by Wooster's Director of Academic Computing Services, Phil Harriman, to help him in the development of the College's World-Wide Web Server, a project that would take three months just to get off the ground.

In the time between my first introduction to the World-Wide Web and being given the daunting task of developing web pages for the College, I had taught myself HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the programming language with which to construct web pages. I had done so in a six-hour marathon session one night. After a lot of tinkering, I had my own personal web page on the Internet and was surfing regularly.

I was hooked.

So now it was May, I had interviewed for and received the job of "Webmaster". I am ready to go. In the beginning, Phil and I spent a lot of time discussing what we wanted the WooInfo Home Page to look like and what information we wanted to include. We bounced ideas off of each other about web presentation and information to include.

The job was looking larger and larger.

Phil is a goal-oriented person. He wanted the page to go "live" by August 1. He also wanted the entire server up and running from the start, not just a Home Page with a lot of pages under construction behind it. We decided early that we wanted the entire college community represented. Many web presentations at the time were geared only to computer science programs or majors. We decided to provide a great deal of information on the web, where if someone wanted to they could spend hours and hours reading about the entire College; less frizzle in the pan and more content.

So clearly, I had my work cut out for me. A committee was formed to help us solidify the look and content of the web pages, as well as determine what each segment of the college community would like to present. The committee included Hayden Schilling, Vice President for Academic Affairs; Jeff Hanna, Director of College Relations; Bob Rodda, Director of Lowry Center; Jeff Todd, Director of Alumni Relations; Julia Gustafson, Reference Librarian; Tom Wood, Professor of Music, Phil and myself. Needless to say, the first thing I would have to overcome was nervousness and any feeling of being intimidated by the other committee members as I presented my ideas to them.

So, I got to work. For the next few weeks I conducted research, which meant exploring the web presentations of other colleges. My friends couldn't believe that I was getting paid to surf the net.

I saw some things I liked, others I didn't. I researched all day, every day. I presented my initial ideas to the committee after what I thought was a great deal of consideration and careful research. It was based on a who, what, when, where and why concept and would include buttons for each of those areas with information about Wooster relating to each. I presented the idea to the committee.

They hated it.

Well, they didn't exactly hate it, but it wasn't what many of them had in mind. So I listened to their different suggestions and needs and went back to the drawing board.

Five or six times I came back to the committee and each time they told me they wanted some aspect of the presentation different. A new wrinkle here, a different way of presenting something there. It seemed everybody was at odds over the particulars.

Finally, we all decided on a look and content we liked. I then spent a great deal of time converting existing information to H.T.M.L., adding graphics and photos in a mad dash to have all of the information ready to go by August 1. The amount of information was staggering. Each academic department was represented as well as countless other campus organizations; student, faculty and otherwise. It seemed like every piece of information about the College had to be converted from its existing format, mainly WordPerfect into HTML. The process was long and painstaking.

Before we could go live, however, we had to educate a good portion of the Wooster community as to the use of HTML. If we were going to include all of this information, we would have to train people in all of the departments, both academic and administrative, in the maintenance of their own pages. One aspect of all web pages is constant updating and changing to keep things current. We had to empower others to keep the pages updated, but first they had to learn what it was they were going to have to do.

Guess who would teach the classes?

I was apprehensive at first about instructing five classes of 65 individuals; most of whom had little or no knowledge of the World-Wide Web, or HTML, for that matter. Three of these people were former professors of mine.

Early on, I was concerned. But my "students" were great. No one treated me with anything other than respect and I gained a new appreciation for the learning process from an entirely new angle. It was a reversal of roles. I gave and graded homework for all of the people in the classes, which were given in the morning and afternoon. It also made for some long days. I found instructing to be one of the most positive aspects of the experience.

August 1 rolled around and, due to some nagging glitches, we had to postpone the date we would go "live" to August 15. But precisely on that date WooInfo went live and Wooster had a strong presence on the World-Wide Web. I felt a deep sense of pride and an appreciation for what could be accomplished with determination, hard work and the ability to work within a team setting.

My responsibilities with WooInfo did not end with going live. We have continued to add pages and tinker throughout the year. As I said, web pages need constant updating. We also have some new ideas to implement in the future. Soon, I'd like to change the Home Page to give it a more visually appealing look. It is also important that our web pages become an on-campus as well as off-campus resource. We already post campus news and notes on the web. We also hope to make WooInfo a teaching tool in classrooms on campus. To that end, I will be leading a class of ten faculty members in which we can explore ways to utilize web technology in the classroom.

The possibilities are endless. It's my job to make the possibilities a reality.

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Last updated: Tuesday, January 05, 1999 00:04
Donnell T. Wyche dwyche@mediaone.net