Science, Engineering Unite Online

Science, Engineering Unite Online

The interdisciplinary nature of Rice recently manifested itself in a new form—a joint Web site for the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.

Located at http://dacnet.rice.edu/SEnews/, the new site serves as a centralized resource for prospective students, faculty, alumni, members of the science and engineering community and of the broader campus community.

"We wanted to provide an effective entry into the world of science and engineering at Rice and to increase accessibility of pertinent information to folks both internally and externally," said Kathleen Matthews, dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences. "Because we are seeking a more seamless connection between the schools, we felt that an effective mechanism of communicating our intent was to generate a joint Web site. As the problems in both science and engineering become more complex and at the same time more interrelated, the ability to move with facility across the various boundaries between our disciplines becomes increasingly more important. We felt that a joint Web site could develop over time to convey these interconnections and the interweaving of efforts, both in education and in research." Development of the project was a joint effort of Matthews and Sidney Burrus, dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering, with the assistance of the Office of Public Affairs and DAC-Net, said Krist Bender, director of the Data Applications Center (DAC).

The science and engineering home page includes two places to highlight new developments in the schools—the "Announcements" section and the space at the lower right of the campus photo. These areas will inform the Rice community about events and also give the outside viewer a taste of what is happening in the two schools.

The new site also features a master calendar of seminars and events where visitors can find lectures, meetings and colloquia taking place in both divisions.

"I see the master calendar as the most valuable feature of the Web site," said Ann Lugg, editor in the Office of the Dean of Engineering. "If all departments in the two schools use it, we’ll avoid scheduling conflicts like those we’ve had in the past—two prominent speakers on topics of interest to both schools speaking at the same time. DAC-Net has done a great job of incorporating features that make the calendar easy to use, like checking for scheduling conflicts and automatic submission of events to the RiceInfo calendar and the Rice News."

The events calendar, which was developed at the request of Matthews and Burrus, was designed to be not only a system for general listings on the science and engineering Web site, but also customizable for individual departments.

In addition, this calendar can provide any number of other specialized calendars for individual departments and centers outside of science and engineering or for useful groupings of these.

It would be possible with this system, Bender said, to create new calendars such as "Arts and Music," "Humanities and Social Sciences" or "Business and Management."

Among the site’s technical features is the fact that major sections share content with other Web sites, taking advantage of databases already developed for other projects.

Development of shared resources for the alumni section, http://dacnet.rice.edu/SEnews/Alumni/ , is also planned, and features will be added to allow alumni to participate directly in this section of the Web site.

Any division or department wishing to use such systems, customized to meet its own needs and Web site design, should contact DAC-Net at dacnet@rice.edu.