Nearly two years ago Castleton partnered with Fastspot, an interactive agency from Baltimore specializing in web design and CMS solutions for higher education, cultural institutions, museums and nonprofits. The official launch on August 12 marked the culmination of countless hours of collaborative research, design, and migration of thousands of pages of information. We are pleased to introduce an all new castleton.edu.
Home Page
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Academics Page
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Resources Page
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In 1995 castleton.edu made its first appearance on the information super highway. It was an exciting moment in time for the oldest university in Vermont. Fast forward nearly 20 years and the website is receiving its first real overhaul. Sure, it has received a facelift here, an alteration there, and loads of new content over the years. But nearly two years ago the university embarked on a new challenge - find out what our visitors want and need, and deliver.
In short, everything. The most noticeable change is the stunning visual facelift it received, but most notable are the structural changes. Below are some details, as well as some important information for users who have grown accustomed to the old version.
While the beginning of the internet age was exciting to be sure, like most frontiers it was pretty lawless. Need a new page? Add it. Need that page to show up "over there?" Add it "over there," too. That led to multiple pages containing the same or similar information in multiple places, making it impossible to update in a timely manner, and even more challenging to ensure its accuracy. The "Big Tree" content management system, a software developed by Fastspot, is specifically designed to combat this very issue. Need a piece of content to show up in three different places? Design it once and tell it where to appear. Better yet, tell it when to remind you to update it, and better still tell it when it's time to come down.
The information architecture and navigation structure of the new site is intuitive to a new visitor upon first visit. Directories are well thought out, and careful planning of where and when links appear has been utilized every step of the way. The navigation allows a visitor to forge his or her own path through the site without getting lost on a second or third level page. We want you to spend time reading our stories, watching our videos, and studying our photos. But, we also understand that you're in a hurry, so if you want to get straight to it, our most desired content is always just a click away.
We know you've got a lot of devices. We want every experience with castleton.edu to be a positive one. Whether you're using a desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, or the next technology that hasn't been invented yet. That's why the site doesn't change, it responds. All of the navigation and all of the content remains the same while the site automatically adapts to your device.
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Previously, castleton.edu tried to serve the needs of all of our diverse and varied audiences, which include first-time visitors like prospective students and parents, and regular visitors like current students, faculty, and staff. This created confusion among external audiences and first time visitors, and overloaded our regular visitors and internal audiences with information they did not necessarily want or need.
Now, castleton.edu appeals as an introduction for first-time visitors, such as prospective students or the parent of a prospective student, helping that audience get to know Castleton without being confused and distracted by extra links and information intended for our internal audiences.
For regular visitors like faculty, staff, and current students castleton.edu/resources is likely the most desired destination. Here you will find all of our most frequently visited links including recent news, calendars, email, the VSC portal and Canvas. We recommend our most frequent visitors bookmark this page, or better yet, make it your browser's home page.
Submit a support request, and our team will get back to you as quickly as we can.