Webmaster's Blog

Hello My name is...

Now that I have had some time to lift my head above the water, it’s time to introduce myself.

My name is Jefferson Furtado and I am the new Webmaster for the Volunteer State Community College. I come to Vol State from the non-profit / faith-based world and I have had many years of experience planning, designing, developing, and managing websites.

Though things have been pretty busy, in these first few weeks, I managed to make some time to develop a new template for the Vol State blogs. My goal with the new template is to create a consistent look across all blogs.volstate.edu sites, but still give blog administrators the liberty to customize their individual sites.

The template has a few features, which I hope will help the blog users and please blog administrators:

• Constant Navigation Links (the red block on the top right corner of the site)
  • VolState.edu: Link back to the school’s website.
  • Quick Links: Here you will find links to areas of the main school’s website.
    (About Vol State, Academics, Current Students, Faculty & Staff, Business & Community, Alumni & Donors)
  • Help Center: Here you will find useful links
    (Student Email, D2L, My VolState, Catalog, Library, Calendar, People Finder, Campus Maps, A-Z)
  • Search: This will allow you to search www.volstate.edu.
• The sidebar also has some new features. Besides the default Blog Search, Categories, Archive, the side features a Twitter feed and Flickr.
• The footer has the school’s branding, social links, and contact information.

Though the template is live, it is not yet a finished product. Feedback and suggestions are welcomed.

As we move forward, I hope to establish a consistent blogging schedule. My hope is to continue the dialog started by the previous Webmaster and use this blog as a channel where we discuss about how to make www.volstate.edu a better site for all of us.