Website Updates

The Emporia State University website has come a long way since the launch of the new site in late October. We are constantly looking for improvements to implement based on usability information, analytics and feedback from our users.

One of the biggest issues with websites, and web content, nowadays is accessibility. We have been focused on updating our website to make it accessible to all users, no matter their device or browser. We are proud to say that our website is currently ranked #1, in terms of accessibility, in the state of Kansas by an external reviewer. We have updated all images to include alternative text, added metadata to each page so search engines can better optimize which pages display, icons displaying an error, and more.

Another hot topic would be the user experience, or feel, of our website. We have made nine site-wide updates to make navigation through our site as natural as possible. In addition to site-wide updates, we have completed over 800 feedback requests from our 77 departmental WebDACs. We work closely with our departmental WebDACs to ensure that each department's content is correct, updated, and fresh. We have recently created a new WebDAC Portal that allows for more feedback from our web team to WebDACs and allows for better tracking per request. Before the web team moved to work remotely due to COVID-19, we had been scheduling weekly meetings with various WebDACs to receive feedback and run through their pages together. We will soon start this back up again as time allows.

In addition to being highly involved with our WebDACs, we are also working towards expanding our involvement with faculty, staff, and students! Faculty and student focused meetings are taking place to receive more feedback on the website, not just from our internal web team and WebDACs. We want to have a website where all entities of the university are comfortable, and happy, using!

Check out a list of the site-wide updates that we’ve made, and updates that are on our radar for the future, on our Web + Digital Guide! You can also learn more about our WebDAC program, and find a list of WebDACs, on our WebDAC page.

Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies

Web Presence Update!

As the Fall semester is in full-go, I am sure many of those here at Emporia State are wondering... What is going on with the websites? Luckily, we provide a web page, Web Presence Projects, that provides information on Hornet 365 and our public website. Examples of information provided are timelines, future enhancements, progress pages, and much more. We're very excited that Hornet 365 had a successful launch, and we are excited to launch the public website!

Don't forget to provide any feedback on our website by using this form. This helps us determine what you all want and helps us fix any bugs/issues. Good luck this semester, pay attention to the coming changes to Emporia State's web presence, and Stingers Up!

Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies

The NEW Newsstand!

Newsstand, Hornet 365's digital publications hub, has gone through some serious updates since last mentioned! We now host 9 publications on Newsstand, and it is growing fast! Two of our newest publication additions have been the Hornet Connect Program Guide and the Student Technology Guide. Everyone has the option to flip through the publication on the website itself, or choose to download the publication as a PDF. We have also simplified the process to be showcased on Newsstand by adding a submission form.

Interested in reading publications that Emporia State University departments, student groups, and faculty have to offer? Do you have a publication to share with the rest of campus? Check out Newsstand on Hornet 365!


Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies

New Hornet 365

A couple weeks ago we unveiled our most up-to-date version of Hornet 365. The latest version includes upgrades to accessibility, loading speeds, and even more helpful 'tiles' for each page. Every day we work on adding more content to create an even better University Portal. The feedback we have received for Hornet 365 has been helpful with a lot of great suggestions that we've been able to immediately add to the site. We thrive on the feedback because that is our best way to satisfy our audience, you. Within the first seven days of launch, Hornet 365 had over 10,000 pageviews! This is great to see as this University Portal will be the easiest way to find any online service that the university provides. We're very happy with the results thus far, but we are always looking to improve our services. Head over to hornet.emporia.edu to check it out and leave feedback!


Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies

Accessibility Extensions

Emporia State University recently acquired updated versions of 'Read & Write' and 'EquatIO' software. Both of these are accessibility extensions compatible with Google Chrome that can help you with everyday tasks. 'Read & Write' can help you understand web pages better as it reads it aloud to you. This gives you an opportunity to actively listen and take notes if you'd like. 'EquatIO' is a tool that will help you convert your own handwriting to math equations on your computer. This is extremely helpful when writing out math equations on your computer. Faculty and students can download this extension, free, by selecting this link and following the instructions on the page. All-in-all, we hope that these two new tools will help everyone with your learning process!

Link to download.

Sam Derksen
Web Developer
Web and Digital Strategies

Yes, these phones really are that good

2017 was a big year for phones. The iPhone X came out, the Google Pixel 2 came out, and the Galaxy Note 8 came out. And for those of us that are relatively behind on the big tech crunch and are out of the loop with all the big tech details, that just means the major phone companies released some pretty great technology. Last year there was heavy pressure from companies to produce better-than-ever cameras and that is exactly what they did. IT has access to a Pixel 2XL that we have been using for some of our media and we've been loving the photos that it's producing. We won't really go into too much of the technical details on how these camera's are doing well, but it has a lot to do with some pretty cool software processing. These photos are turning out so good that IT is using them on their website projects, and we can't tell the difference on our high resolution monitors.

For those of you on campus who love photography and don't want to drop ten thousand dollars on a good camera, maybe consider one of these phones for your next upgrade. You'd be amazed at what type of photos you'll take with something that fits into your back pocket. Below are a few samples taken by myself on campus and on road trips, and you might have seen several others taken with the Pixel 2XL on some of our websites. Enjoy the photos!

-Warrick Rodgers
IT Student Web Developer