The recording from our Nov. 3 overview webinar with the Ag & Natural Resources Extension program area is now available.

Thank you to Program Leader Sam Angima for providing this opportunity.

New site for internal content

Our new internal/employee resources website will launch this week, likely on Wednesday, Nov. 15. The Employee Resources link on the Extension website will be updated to point to the new location. The new address will be https://employee.extension.oregonstate.edu

Tune in to the Nov. 17 Outreach & Engagement Quarterly Conversation for a short demo of our new intranet site.

Highlights

• The organization of the new website and the content is essentially unchanged.
• The site is now mobile friendly and incorporates the new OSU branding.
• The Out of State Travel and Professional Development forms have been recreated, with the same functionality.
• In the future (after our new external website is launched and running smoothly), we can focus on additions and improvements to our internal content.
• If you’d like to share needs, ideas, or requests for an engaging “intranet” site, please contact the project team and we will add them to our growing “wish list.”

Content teams continue to make good progress

• Nine content teams (at least one in each program area) are formed. See the content teams page for team info and progress updates.
• Over the next week, we are looking forward to kickoff meetings with the Food Safety and Home Horticulture content teams, and follow-up meetings with a couple of other teams.
• With each meeting, our project team has received valuable feedback and examples of content that are helping us revise the topic list/menus, and site structure and functions.
• This engagement with content teams is critically important in helping us prepare for an initial web demo at Extension Annual Conference. Thank you!

Content teams are making good progress

• Nine content teams (at least one in each program area) are formed.
• We’ve held content team six kickoff meetings and three follow-up meetings.
• See the content teams page for team info and progress updates.

Keep the questions coming

Thanks for asking questions! That’s how we are going to learn together through this process. Additional FAQs have been posted.

If you don’t see the answer to your question, we want to hear from you. Your feedback will help us improve our communication plan and this project blog, and inform our work with content teams.

Program Leader Sam Angima is hosting a webinar for the Ag & Natural Resources Extension Program on Nov. 3 to review the overall strategy, website content process, and expectations for working groups. Jennifer Alexander and Lucas Turpin, from the project team, will join to help answer questions. Refer to emails and calendar invitation from Sam for additional details.

New site for internal content coming soon

• We expect to launch the new internal/employee resources website the week of Nov. 13.
• To start, this will be the same content currently found in the employee resources section of the main OSU Extension website
• In the future (after our new external website is launched and running smoothly), we can focus on additions and improvements to our internal content
• If you’d like to share needs, ideas, or requests for an engaging “intranet” site, please contact the project team and we will add them to our growing “wish list.”

As you heard during the Oct. 13 OSU Extension Leadership Update, our web upgrade is on track for a March 2018 launch, thanks to support from our program leaders and a set of newly-formed, hardworking, and committed content teams.

A quick reminder of what this is all about:

We have established a new approach to digital strategy. It will enhance and support our statewide presence by adding an improved, user-focused website and, eventually a CRM (customer relationship management) tool. See “strategies at a glance” for details.

What’s happening now?

• Program leaders have begun to organize content teams. (Thank you!)
• EESC is holding kickoff meetings with each content team to begin the content strategy process.
• The content teams are coordinating statewide to take stock of existing content, evaluate it, organize it, and enter it into the new website. This includes looking at content on county and program sites.
• EESC is working on technical aspects of the new website. Our responsibility is to build the framework that allows all content to be in one place, and—importantly—how the site allows learners to view and access that content in the ways today’s audiences expect and prefer.
• We are also working to move internal content (employee resources) to a separate site within the next month.

As you have questions:

• Watch this blog and ConnEXTions newsletter for status updates and FAQs.
• Connect with your content team and program leader.
• Contact the project team.