Weaving Wooster's Web

For Donnell Wyche, a Wooster junior from Washington, D.C., this summer was anything but a vacation. Wyche is Wooster's WebMaster, and he spent every waking hour--plus a few in his sleep, no doubt--spinning WooInfo, the College's new site on the World-Wide Web. From a corner of the computer center "cage" in Taylor Hall, Wyche has managed to push virtually every area of the campus into cyberspace together.

If you haven't already surfed Wooster's site (http:// www.wooster.edu), here are a few of the things you'll find:

• searchable directories to locate faculty, staff and student e-mail addresses;
• the libraries' catalogue and links to dozens of other library resources;
• the latest news releases;
• full-text on-line version of Wooster Reports;
• forms to update your address in alumni records or to send a class note to Wooster,
• details about admissions and information on more than two dozen campus offices and organizations.

WooInfo on the World-Wide Web took the place of the gopher version of WooInfo that was launched last spring by Philip Harriman, the director of academic computing. A campus committee oversaw the implementation of the new site and made the decision to go from the gopher, which does not support graphics, to the web, which offers both a text-only and a graphics version depending on which browser is used to gain access.

"The Web is clearly the way most people are going," said Harriman. "We discussed whether or not we should retain a version of our campus-wide information server that could be accessed through the gopher and ultimately decided we ought to spend all our efforts on the Web."

Although the committee gave the project direction, it was Wyche who was responsible for the overall development. Not only did he create the home page (the opening screen from which browsers begin to visit a site), but he spent much of his time this summer in the classroom, teaching Wooster faculty and staff how to turn their documents into HTML, HyperText Markup Language that is used to write material for the Web

"Donnell did just a spectacular job of getting us ready to go live with our home page," said Harriman. "I think it is remarkable to have a student to take on as many responsibilities as Donnell did for a project of this magnitude."

The WooInfo home page made its live debut on Aug. 15. Within 24 hours, the system had logged more than 2,000 "hits" (log-ons to the Wooster page from distance computer users) and visitors from all across the country had logged into the home page.

"Our goal all along was to create a home page that was as comprehensive as possible before we went live with it," noted Harriman. "From personal experience , nothing is worse than finding an interesting Web site only to run into 'under construction' signs all over the place. Thanks largely to Donnell's hard work and the committee's support, we had no such signs when we went live."--JGH

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