Web 2.0

The Cavalier Daily hopes new website will encourage greater user interaction

Yesterday morning, The Cavalier Daily publicly launched what we hope will be a new and improved online edition. The goal was to create a cleaner look, a more user-friendly interface and an easier-to-navigate website. We feel confident the new site makes great strides in each area.
Many upgrades and fresh features accompany the new edition. Perhaps most important, the site’s pages are designed to load quicker than its predecessor’s — the faster response times should allow visitors to view content more easily and with less disruption than before. In addition, the site now allows for RSS feeds, giving readers the opportunity to subscribe and be notified of the latest Cavalier Daily articles, columns, and comics.
It is our hope that the new site will evolve over time to include a greater variety of content. The platform now lets editors upload audio and video media with relative ease, making the possibility for new mediums of communication more attainable than ever before. In general, the ability to upload content easier and on a more secure platform will make the online edition much more comprehensive. Rather than simply an extension of the hardcopy paper, the online edition will become a source for original, exclusive features in its own right.
All told, the single most important objective for Web 2.0 is enhanced interaction with the site’s visitors. Reading articles is a passive activity; webpages allow for better engagement with the material. Readers can still post comments on articles, but now have a much wider array of options to facilitate discussion and connect with others. Links to Facebook, Digg, Twitter, e-mail, and so forth let visitors share their favorite stories with friends.
As always, The Cavalier Daily welcomes feedback from its readers. By making our web presence more user-friendly, it is our sincerest desire to promote open discourse about the issues of greatest importance to the University community.

You-JC

To take full advantage of its new YouTube channel, the University Judiciary Committee should produce more student-oriented content

On August 26, the University Judiciary Committee unveiled its own YouTube channel, introduced with the goal of bettering students’ understanding of the organization’s complex procedures. Five videos have been added to the channel thus far.
The current lineup consists mostly of videos that are geared toward UJC members; for example, one is titled “Support Officers,” and another “Managing Cases.” There is definite value to publicly posting these internal how-to guides. It gives UJC greater transparency and demystifies the system for the general student body. Other student organizations could benefit from following this example.
Still, for the channel to reach its full potential as an educational tool, UJC should provide more personable, general interest videos. As of now, only one clip on its channel seems targeted toward the greater student body: an instructional guide on how to file a complaint. The presentation is rather technical and the visuals consist entirely of screenshots. Though nothing is necessarily wrong with such an approach, these videos will do little to improve UJC’s public relations. Videos with UJC officials acting as hosts explaining the system would be a change for the better. Such clips could address both technical, procedural matters as well as broader topics like explaining UJC’s role in the University’s judicial landscape.
UJC’s co-Senior Data Manager Gavin Reddick has expressed interest in uploading dorm talk videos and other presentations to the channel as they become available. This is a step in the right direction, but only one piece toward maximizing the project’s effectiveness.