About the Extension Intranet Website
The Extension Intranet website is designed to promote the different theme areas and encourage interdisciplinary programming. There are three primary users of the site: extension administrators, newsletter authors, and extension educators. Each of these audiences benefits from the site in a slightly different way.
Extension Administrators
In order to promote the theme areas, this site will utilize areas of communication that are already heavily used within the organization--newsletters. Being able to take newsletter issues/articles and categorize them by any theme area will serve as a building block for interdisciplinary work.
Newsletter Authors
This site serves newsletter authors by allowing these newsletter editors to provide their content in a variety of forms while only entering the story once. The site will also create an archive for newsletters and other communications that will allow each theme area to be highlighted with no extra effort by those providing the content. After entering a story in the intranet site, it will be delivered in the following methods:
- Website Feature: The front page of the intranet site features articles for each of the theme areas. Any story that gets posted via the website will be listed under any appropriate theme areas. The most recent three articles are listed for each theme, along with a highlighted theme for the month. Afterwards, the stories are available in the online archive.
- Online Archive: The online archive provides a searchable database for your newsletter. People can now make one easy search in order to search a variety of newsletters. These searches can be based on keyword, by the newsletter or by theme area.
- Email Distribution: People can sign up to receive emails based on the theme area or by the newsletter. This way each subscriber can select any combination of emails to receive, and won't receive duplicate emails if a story was applicable to two or more topics they subscribed to.
- PDF Generation: In order to provide all the stories in an easily available downloadable format, PDF files can be generated automatically immediately after the story is put online. The pdf will not have any additional formatting options over publishing for the web, so these generated pdfs may not be suitable for all purposes.
- RSS Newsfeeds: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Newsfeeds are a way of providing information to other websites and directly to your computer with a newsreader. Stories posted to the site are available in our many RSS newsfeeds that we offer. For full information on RSS Newsfeeds, see our rss page.
Extension Educators
Extension educators will benefit from the intranet site as they will be able to get all the information from multiple newsletters and communications all in one place. Each educator can customize a subscription for the emails they receive, lowering the amount of email they receive each day. Educators can even use a newsreader in order to get all this information without even having to visit the site!
Future Site Plans
The newsletter archive section of these pages were intended as an easy start to get current content onto this site. However it isn't what the site will be limited to. Plans for a comprehensive events calendar as well as other resources are in the works.
