Members of the UVI Community – students, alumni, faculty and staff – are invited to participate in the effort to redesign and improve the University's presence on the World Wide Web. The ultimate goal is to eventually present all UVI web pages with a consistent design that is interesting and inviting, with content that quickly directs users to the information they seek.

The UVI community was asked in September to submit ideas and suggestions for a redesigned web site. Those suggestions will be augmented with the results from focus group meetings with various University stakeholders that are scheduled to take place next week.

The systems engineering and consulting firm OmniSystems, Inc. has been retained to help organize this project with the University's Public Relations Office. OmniSystems, Inc. was founded in 1993 by Ian Tomlinson and Reginald Vigilant, who are 1988 UVI graduates. OmniSystems http://www.omnisystems.com has more than 45 employees located in the Virgin Islands, the mainland U.S. and South America.

The type of web site that is planned will be standards based and Section 508 compliant, allowing distributed authorship using a secure, browser-based interface. OmniSystems uses special software that will allow UVI subject matter experts and non-technical individuals to make changes to website content.

Several proposed design concepts for a new UVI home page are offered above for comment. The concept pages do not include functioning links. Please forward your comments to pr@uvi.edu by Monday, March 10.