MATC Matters

As you can see, MATC Matters has a new look - and some new functionality. We are especially pleased to “launch” the improved site this week because the story behind it is a perfect example of how Convocation offers great opportunities for sharing information.

At Convocation last spring, we attended a demonstration by Dan McCormick of Research and Planning’s new Environmental Scan site, which uses blogging technology to offer research and trends of interest to MATC. We were inspired to use this new technology as a model for improving MATC Matters, which we’ve done with the help of Technology Services staff, in particular, Chad Draheim, Annette Koenig and Kim Bethea.

A blog-style web publishing program called WordPress is the key, and it has enabled us to streamline the process for publishing stories and information on MATC Matters. In addition, the program has made our newsletter completely searchable. Stories now can be searched by category, day, month or by keyword or phrase!

This fully searchable site will save you time when you’re looking for information, and the automatic archiving will save many hours of staff time that’s been spent on entering those articles manually.

A few features worth noting include:

• Search function at the top right-hand side you can use to search using keywords or phrases.
• Quick links to standing pages - about the site, weekly events lists for MATC locations, the MATC homepage and MATC Matters home.
• Direct link to submit stories, with simplified submission form. Regular submitters will be trained as “authors” for the site (more on this later).
• Categories list on the right-hand side, lists archived stories by category. Click on any category to see all past posts.
• Browse by date feature that includes a searchable calendar. You can click on the month and see all stories for that month or click on a day for all the stories posted that day. Events show up as red dates on the calendar.
• The Upcoming Events category can be “timed” to have events appear at specific times and each day’s events will appear in special “Today at MATC” category.
• The Top Stories category also is linked to Inside MATC so a link to important news and events can be viewed on the Inside MATC portal homepage. (This feature will be available soon.)

To submit news, please continue to use the “Submit a News Item” link. Write your news directly in the space provided or attach a Word, image or pdf file to the submission form.

Please send any comments, questions or suggestions using the submission form. We welcome your input.

Thanks!
Communications Staff