Posts Tagged ‘website’

Marcolian Round-Up!

A new school year brings us a new Marcolian…or at least in paper form.  The Marc website has not been updated to reflect the new stories.

If you’re looking for another helpful student media, the Marcolian is less of a newsy paper (usually runs every other week, but that may be changing) and more of a magazine.  They cover big campus events, but tell more of the story than just telling you what happened.  There are more editorials and opportunities for students to speak their mind and get their point across.

Headlines in this week’s Marcolian:

• Matriculation Ceremony takes place tonight
• Marietta College ranked 112th in Nation
• MC Students travel to Central America
• Planetarium community events scheduled for August, September
• Soccer coach expects greatness
• Football team prepares for season of growth
• Local Churches
• Student Discounts
• Fine Arts on Campus
• President welcomes Class of 2013
• Senior gives prospective on summer
• Del Mar’s Baja Grill disappoints
• Freshman offers fresh perspective
• Campus Organizations
• Cable Channel Guide

Writing on the Mall will be posting a few more guides now based off of a few of the Marc articles (Church Guide, Campus Organization Guide), but already has guides featuring the Cable Channel Listing (which was updated today to include digital channels for those with Digital Tuners), Area Concert Guide, and more.

And as a side note, Del Mar’s is really tasty (in my opinion) so I disagree with the Op/Ed saying that it lacks flavor and experience.  They just opened, they’re still training and hiring.  Cut them some slack.  And I think its tasty and flavorful.  But make your own opinion.

Pick up a copy of the Marcolian today to read all of the articles they have this week.

New MC Website Brings New Direction

As in new content that will be updated throughout the year. The new Marietta College website will actually be somewhere that students will want to visit.  The site launched with six feature articles, including the following:

• Events celebrating the 175th anniversary of Marietta College
• A letter from the Student Senate President, Kyle Thauvette
• A connection piece featuring the importance of resident life at MC
• Matriculation piece welcoming the class of 2013
• Feature article on Jim Tracy, manager of the Colorado Rockies of Major League Baseball
• Pioneer Pride day announcement asking all members of the Long Blue Line to take a picture of themselves in their favorite MC shirt

The idea seems to be to incorporate the past, present, and future all into one nice package.  Visual appearance has improved greatly, with large images and prominently featured 175th anniversary logos.  Content is more easily accessed and easily added/updated.

According to a press release from Tom Perry, the Director of College Relations, we should expect anywhere from 4-8 articles a month, which should keep things fresh and interesting.

As a side note, we have been recognized by the college as a local news outlet, which is a huge step for us.  We will continue to provide a look at Marietta College from the student’s perspective.  Writing on the Mall is still a student owned and operated blog…just expanding our readership and promoting our wears.

Zimbra is the New MC Mail System

If you check your Marietta College e-mail over the summer, you just saw an e-mail from the head of the school’s IT Department about the new e-mail system the school is moving to.  The system, known as Zimbra, is Yahoo’s answer to Google Apps.  And by answer, I mean alternative with all the same features at a higher price.

Zimbra features e-mail, hence why its replacing the old webmail system, but does much more than that.  It includes instant messaging, collaborative documents, web storage, collaborative calendars, collaborative task lists, and archival systems.  Things that Google Apps also does in a more familiar form to most users.  But at a cost that Google does not put on users.

Not that price matters to the student, but I’m guessing it is somewhere between $9 and $14 a student a year.  Support for the platform is around $2,500 a year.  But factor in all the students, administrators, faculty, and staff that will use the system, and the total price is huge.  Google Apps for education is free and includes all the things that people use and already collaborate with, plus free support.

The reason I’m questioning the move to Zimbra is that the school has had to make budget cuts in the past, and will probably continue to do so with the economy in its current form.  Zimbra seems like a great platform.  But so is Google, at the low low price of free.  The college could take the money saved from using the Google Apps platform, and then use it for other things that need improved around campus, or put more money into the student activities fund for student groups to use effectively.

Zimbra is not the only change coming to Marietta’s online presence.  WebAdvisor will be updated over the summer, and will supposedly create a more user-friendly environment for students to use to access grades and scheduling.  A new Marietta website is also in the works, which will hopefully premier soon (before college recruiting season begins).

With the Zimbra update, all mail that crosses the college’s server from the 31st through August 1st or 2nd.  All mail will then be accessible again.

Give Zimbra a chance since we have it, and some classes will probably use its functions, but stick with Google if you can.  It’s the de facto standard for easy collaboration tools.