University of Chicago Law School: The Electronic Projects Blog

The New Website is Now Live!

This morning we launched the new Law School website!

While the virtual champagne dries, the Communications office would like to extend a big thank you to all of folks who put so much effort into getting this off the ground, from our designers and developers to the folks at NSIT's Web Admin group and the many students, faculty, and staff who gave us feedback during the long and complicated process of bringing the new site to life.

Built on the flexible and robust open-source Drupal content management platform, the new site will allow staff from across the Law School to collaborate in extending the Law School's close-knit community onto the web. It encourages engagement from users by highlighting the our commitment to spirited debate, and brings to the fore our frequently updated collection of video and audio content.

The occasional bug, broken link, or misplaced file is inevitable in such a large move, so we hope you'll let us know if you find one, or if you just have comments or suggestions. You can leave comments here or on the site itself.

The Communications office is also, as a group, just beginning to unlock everything that our Drupal content-management system has to offer. As we learn the ins and outs of the system, you can expect improvements in the functionality and look-and-feel of the website.

Please let us know what you think! How can we keep improving the site?

The New Website Approacheth

As you may know, the Communications office will be launching the Law School’s new website on Thursday, June 18. The website has been completely redesigned and reorganized with usability and convenience as paramount concerns. The site is also being moved to a new, more powerful and flexible software platform that will greatly enhance our ability to engage the Law School community.

In order to ensure that the content on the new site accurately reflects that of the old site, we will be instituting a content freeze on the current site as of 3pm this Friday, June 12. This will mean that no one besides the Communications office will be able to make any changes to the Law School’s website between 3pm on 6/12 and 9am on 6/18. If you have changes that must be made during that time, please contact me (or Jenni Fry or Marsha Nagorsky if I am unavailable). If you currently have editing privileges on the Law School’s website (or would like to have such privileges), we will be announcing training sessions for use of the new software over the course of the summer.

After the launch of the new site on June 18, we ask for your help in identifying any issues, bugs, or missing content that may have gotten lost in the shuffle (due to the platform change, some web addresses [URLs] will have changed in the transition to the website’s new platform, so it’s possible that your favorites or bookmarks may need to be updated). We will provide a space for your feedback here on the Electronic Projects Blog, and we would greatly appreciate your input. While the site will be fully functional as of June 18, we expect to continue tweaking the content, organization, and appearance of the site throughout the summer, so your feedback will be vital in producing the best user experience possible.

Student Events Podcast Starts Summer Vacation

Last week's edition of "Open Minds: The Student Events Podcast" was the last one of the academic year; it will go on hiatus over the summer months and return in the fall. The Faculty Podcast will continue on its regular biweekly schedule.

A Law School iPhone App?

Even as head toward the finish line in the relaunch of the Law School website, the Communications department is thinking about the next big project. We've been kicking around ideas for an iPhone application and found ourselves wondering what the members of the Law School community might find useful in such an application. Let us know in the comments below!

No Fooling: The Redesigned Website is Almost Here

Last week the Communications staff got our first hands-on experience with the Law School's new website, as we received training on how to use our new content management system from our web developers at Palantir.net. The site looks great, and has now been set up on the Law School's server, clearing the way for us to begin migrating content from the current site.

While we could probably launch the new site within a matter of weeks, we've opted to be cautious with the launch. There are a lot of important events going on in spring quarter, from Admitted Students Weekend to Reunion to Graduation, and they all make heavy use of the website in order to keep people informed, register them for events, and so on. And since migrating content will require us to keep staff from making changes to certain areas of the website for up to a week, it makes sense to wait until the academic year has ended to ensure that our website's users have access to the most up-to-date information for all of the aforementioned events. As a result, we are now planning to launch the new site by the end of June. This plan also provides the added advantage of allowing extended beta testing, to ensure the best possible experience for all of our users.

We are all very excited about the new site and are looking forward to sharing it with you!

Update on the Website Redesign: Recapping the Process

It's been a while since we've updated you on the progress of the website redesign. I promise we haven't forgotten about it, and that it is moving ahead full throttle.

Redesigning a large website like that of the Law School is one of those tasks that doesn't seem all that complicated -- until you actually start doing it. So in case you're wondering just what goes into an undertaking like this (or are just wondering what the heck is taking us so long) here's a recap of the process so far.

The Bailouts Course Blog

This quarter Profs. Baird, Henderson, and Picker are teaching a course on Bailouts, and are asking their students to blog their responses to readings. Check them out on the course blog, and take a look at the syllabus.

It's Alive! The UChicagoLaw Twitter Feed

The Law School now has its very own Twitter account, which can alert you to newly added content from everything from our Faculty Podcast to our alumni magazine.

If you're the curious type and are wondering how we accomplished this feat, read on.

When we in the Communications department here at the Law School first started trying to figure out how we might be able to use Twitter, our first inclination was to aggregate the Twitter feeds of our brave student and faculty Tweeters into a single stream and feed it back into Twitter. We eventually settled on the TweetChicago format for two reasons. Most importantly, we felt that format did a better job at putting faces to stories, but also... it is much harder than it sounds to effectively aggregate Twitter feeds.

I recently decided to tackle the problem again in order to address a long-standing problem with our Facebook Page. One of our goals for the Facebook page was to allow our "fans"quick access to our various blogs and podcasts, and while RSS aggregating apps exist for Facebook, most of them don't really seem to work -- I was having to manually refresh. The best way to get an RSS feed into Facebook remains their "Notes" application, but you can only import one feed at a time into Notes. So what's a poor Manager of Electronic Communications to do?

Typepad's New Commenting Features - Help Us Test!

Typepad -- the blogging platform that hosts the Law School's blogs, including this one --  recently launched a beta version of a new commenting system, called Typepad Connect. Unlike the previous commenting system, Typepad Connect allows threaded comments, to more easily keep track of discussions. It is also designed to create a sense of community around one's blog, by allowing readers to set up profiles, complete with photos, etc.

Before diving into Typepad Connect on our other blogs, we're going to run a little test here to see how our readers like the new system. Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Faculty Blog Again Named to ABA Journal's Blawg 100

Just when you thought election season was over... the Law School comes campaigning for your vote.

For the second year in a row, the Law School's Faculty Blog has been named to the ABA Journal's Blawg 100. Vying for top honors in the "Professors" category, the Faculty Blog is facing off against 14 other blogs, including Chicago's own Becker-Posner blog. If you enjoy the Faculty Blog, we hope you'll take a moment to click through to the ABA Journal's site and cast your vote.

"New legal blogs are springing up on a daily basis—we now have more than 2,000 in our online directory. Competition for the time and attention of lawyers is getting fiercer," says Edward A. Adams, the Journal’s editor and publisher. "Half the blogs on last year’s inaugural Blawg 100 list didn’t make the cut this year. That’s a testament to the quality of this year’s honorees, and evidence of the increasing amount of valuable information all legal blogs are publishing."

Just when you thought election season was over... the Law School comes campaigning for your vote.

For the second year in a row, the Law School's Faculty Blog has been named to the ABA Journal's Blawg 100. Vying for top honors in the "Professors" category, the Faculty Blog is facing off against 14 other blogs, including Chicago's own Becker-Posner blog. If you enjoy the Faculty Blog, we hope you'll take a moment to click through to the ABA Journal's site and cast your vote.

"New legal blogs are springing up on a daily basis—we now have more than 2,000 in our online directory. Competition for the time and attention of lawyers is getting fiercer," says Edward A. Adams, the Journal’s editor and publisher. "Half the blogs on last year’s inaugural Blawg 100 list didn’t make the cut this year. That’s a testament to the quality of this year’s honorees, and evidence of the increasing amount of valuable information all legal blogs are publishing."