Redesigning the WI+RE website
For the past few months now, the WI+RE Creative team has been working away on some major updates to our website. The site now features sections for workshops and handouts, portfolio pages for our creative team, improved accessibility, and a more visual approach to site navigation!
Celebrating Creativity and Community
As we got started prototyping the website redesign, the WI+RE team was also working on a book chapter exploring the relationship between WI+RE employment and AAC&U’s High Impact Practices (HIPs) in higher education. Looking through the HIPs, we noticed a discussion of e-Portlios as a High Impact Practice that made us wonder - could the new WI+RE site have e-Portfolios?
ePortfolios enable students to electronically collect their work over time, reflect upon their personal and academic growth, and then share selected items with others, such as professors, advisors, and potential employers. Because collection over time is a key element of the ePortfolio process, employing ePortfolios in collaboration with other high-impact practices provides opportunities for students to make connections between various educational experiences.
So, we started tinkering with the idea of portfolio-like profile pages for the Creative Team. This tied in nicely with the idea of intergrating our experimental sandbox directly into the site redesign - allowing WI+RE to share both published work and the behind-the-scenes prototyping and design that guides our process. This dual focus on showcasing finished work and relfecting on the process was the spark for building out our new portfolio pages and WI+RE’s Sandbox.
At the same time, we were inspired by discussions with academic librarian and WI+RE contributor Marisa Méndez-Brady and WI+RE co-founder Renee Romero to think about how the new site could celebrate the many contributions of our community members to each project.
All of our projects involve extensive collaboration across the campus, and we wanted to make sure the new website clearly shared and celebrated these essential contributions. The result is a new “About” box that appears on each tutorial, workshop, and handout page. The about box lists the leads for projects, celebrates community contributors, and showcases awards and special recognition.
Behind the scenes updates
On the technical side of things, we moved from the mix of Materialize and Bootstrap that made up our previous site, to Bootstrap-only for CSS. While we miss quite a few of Materialize’s fancier features, we’re also excited about the simplicity of working with one CSS framework at a time! For this site, we’re using a modified version of the Start Bootstrap theme.
Big thanks to Tinuola Awopetu from UCLA Library’s DIIT for help customizing and improving the CSS! Tinuola made several key contributions to the look and feel of the site!
As always, our code is open source and publicly available on github.
What's next?
More making! We’re currently working on workshops about literature reviews and avoiding plagiarism, and continuing a big project on reading scientific literature. Also be on the lookout for a video or tutorial on eScholarship, and write-ups on our recent and upcoming conference presentations!
Thank you's!
There are so many people to thank! First up, a big shout-out to the WI+RE team for their work on this site redesign! This update has been months in the making and has involved both fun design work and some serious coding as well! Just about all current and former members of WI+RE were involved in some way and our current team members (Kian, Taylor, Juan, and April) did extensive reworking of our html, markdown, and media files to get the site up and running. Thank you!
As mentioned, Marisa Méndez-Brady and Renee Romero gave us some very important feedback on community engagement that helped shape multiple areas of the site which led to significant improvements in how we provide attribution and celebrate community engagement. And Tinuola Awopetu’s CSS magic saved the day on multiple occasions. Thank you!
And, as always, we are ever grateful for the many, many people and campus groups who have contributed to the content on the WI+RE website, including: Abigail Holder, Adam Bowling, Alana Enriquez, Alexandra Solodkaya, Alicia Reiley, Allison R. Benedetti, Amber West, Amy Liu, Annelie Rugg, Annie Pho, Antonia Osuna-Garcia, April Zhou, Ashley Peterson, Beth Goodhue, Bethany Meyers, Bethany Myers, Caitlin Meyer, Callie Holmes, Caroline Kong, Chris Lopez, Christine Holten, CIMER (Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research), Courtney Hoffner, Cymfenee Dean-Phifer, Dana Cairns Watson, Diana King, Diana L. King, Diane Mizrachi, DNA Learning Center, Doug Worsham, Dr. Jordan Moberg Parker, Elizabeth Cheney, Emily, Emily Appleton, Erin Sanders, Fernando Gomez, Gavin Jackson, Geno Sanchez, Giselle Burns, Grace Sosa, Hanna Young, Hannah Sutherland, Henri Lim, Ibraheem Ali, Jacelyn Omusi, Jacy Black, Jake Tompkins, Jake Arakawa, Janet Goins, Janine Henri, Jeannie Chen, Jemma Tan, Jen Pierre, Jessica Rauch, Joanna Chen Cham, Joaquin Peres, Juan Jaime, Juan Díaz, Julia Glassman, Julia Tanenbaum, Kaitlin Alcontin, Kaitlin Alcontin, Kate McAllister, Kate Pham, Katherine Kapsidelis, Katherine Ramirez, Kelly Kistner, Kelly Miller, Kian Ravaei, Leigh Harris, Leigh Phan, Lisa McAulay, Liz Galvin Lew, Lizbeth Del Rio Morquecho, Lou Baya Ould Rouis, Maizah Ali, Makena Tinney, Marian Gabra, Marisa Méndez-Brady, Mary Tran, Mason Hardy, Matt Johnson, Matthew Johnson, Matthew Vest, Max Grollman, Maxwell Grollman, Michael Lima-Sabatini, Miki Goral, Miriam Posner, Mohsin Ali, Monique Tudon, monique-tudon, Nadia Brooks, Natalie Selzer, Neha Gupta, Nina Mamikunian, Nisha Mody, nushrat-esha, Pamela Rodriguez Cervantes, Powell Library, Powell Library Embedded Inquiry Specialists, Rachel Abrahams, Renee Romero, Rikke Ogawa, Robert Freel, Robert Gore, Royson Lin, Rumaysa Ahmad, Salma Abumeeiz, Sarah Phan, Savannah Lake, Scott Martin, Shanna Shaked, Shannon Roux, Shelby Hallman, Shushanik Stepanyan, Simon Lee, Sophia Wu, Syann Lunsford, Sylvia Page, Tama Hasson, Tara Prescott, Taylor Sieverling, Taylor Harper, Thomas Garbelotti, Tony Aponte, UCLA Center for the Advancement of Teaching, UCLA Powell Library, UCLA Undergraduate Research Center - Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, UCLA Undergraduate Research Center - Sciences, UCLA Undergraduate Research Center: Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, UCLA Undergraduate Writing Center, Undergraduate Research Center - Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Undergraduate Research Centers, University of Minnesota Libraries Research Paper Calculator, Valeria Morales, Veronica Kimaz, Whitney Arnold, Wynn Tranfield, Xinjian Cen, Xinyi(Alex) Yan, Zoe Annabella Busenberg, Zoe Borovsky.
Thank you!