Hello all,
I hope everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing fourth of July weekend!
I spent the majority of last week taking classes on how to use Drupal (Drupal is the software I will be using to create the marine sciences website). The class was an all day event that went from Tuesday through Thursday, and a lot of information was presented in that time! By the end of the class, I definitely had a stronger grasp on the software than I did before! Although I do not yet have a webspace to begin creating the marine sciences site, the training course gave us a free training development site to play with. This last weekend I decided to spend some time messing around with my training site so that I could try applying some of the things I learned in the class to the content that I actually want to create.
While I have come a long way, I am still running into some trouble with Drupal in a few areas. So this week I plan to make some contacts. I hope to meet with Jenna, and then hopefully set up a meeting with someone in Central Web Services who can help me overcome some of my roadblocks! In the mean time, I plan to keep practicing with my training site until I receive notification that I have gotten my webspace. And, of course, I always have content to be working on so that will definitely be going on this week as well!
One thing I’ve realized this week is a keen appreciation for what the Oregon State communications people do! On the outside it doesn’t seem too difficult to create a website, but the software is complex! I look at the vast array of websites that OSU has now and it really is incredibly impressive! Everyone has been so helpful, and I hope to be on my way to creating a rockin’ website soon!
Until next time!
Shealyn
Combining the content with the technology is definitely a talent. Not only do you need to understand the software, but having an idea of the story behind the science is pretty important, too. So have you uncovered any marine science stories at OSU that are especially interesting to you?
Hi Sarah! Well I am really interested in marine mammals to be honest, so I have really enjoyed reading about Scott Baker and Bruce Mate’s work. In fact, I hope to include the article from Terra (“Gene Stalker”) featuring Scott Baker in the feature story rotating banner of the website. I may also conduct a few interviews of my own (maybe something on marine mammal strandings) after I have filled the website with pre-existing material.