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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Revisions to University Web site delayed until July

The University’s Web site redesign has been delayed again and the first changes will focus on users outside GW, administrators said this week.

Originally slated to debut this January, the first revisions are now expected to be finished in July.

Administrators attributed the delay to the number of individual pages being changed under Phase I of the revision process, which has been expanded since the program began.

“There’s simply a lot more pages than there was before,” said Robert Chernak, senior vice president for Student and Academic and Support Services. Chernak said the number of pages in Phase I was “well into the hundreds” and that the University, in conjunction with designers at Navigation Arts, the company contracted to design the new site, have been “making terrific progress.”

The first revisions of the site will be aimed at external users like prospective students and people not affiliated with GW. Initially, the first revisions were expected to help incoming freshmen with pre-orientation activities like Colonial Inauguration, but that has since changed due to the delays.

“Our goal has always been to launch the new public Web site at a time that makes sense for the University’s lifecycle,” wrote Vice President for External Relations Lorraine Voles in an e-mail. “Users can expect to see a more unified presentation of the University and a common look and feel across the site.”

Voles added that the new Web site “will better tell the story of the GW experience through human interest stories and features.”

A prototype of the Web site’s future main page highlights different aspects of the University under tabs “Apply,” Learn,” “Create,” “Connect” and “Give.” Dated last November, the prototype also has sections for “GW in the News” and University events.

Chernak said that the July deadline is flexible, but the Web site will undoubtedly debut “before fall.”

Both Chernak and Voles stressed that current students will also see benefits from the changes.

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