Featured Alumnus Scholar WebPages Launched

Monday, June 8, 2009
I launched the website to ~700 members of the CISER community through the emailing system in our Windows SharePoint databases. Members included current and alumni scholars, mentors, teachers, adminstrators, and staff. The email went out under Julie Isom's name, not mine, due to her position and popularity within the entire CISER community, and because of the collaborative nature of my work with her to launch this product, which was developed in my Spring, 2009 webpublishing class.

I also launched the website to our Facebook Group. This email went to the current 91 members of the group.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
I prompted one alumni scholar, who replied to me (not Julie) about the website via email, with questions about The Brain Game and was told that the game was unclear about what was wanted, although the riddle sounded like it might be something fun. I gave the scholar the answer to get participation rolling. This scholar is offically enrolled in the TTU/HHMI Brain Game now, and will have the opportunity to compete for the first round of the game's prize. Each round of the game awards the winner with $50 of books of their choice from Amazon.com

Today, Thursday, June 11, 2009
I have received valuable feedback from 3 alumni via email, including the above, and from one current scholar via face-to-face.

One alumni in a prominent position at UT Austin replied that the website was a great idea, particularly the podcast.

One alumni working on a postdoc replied that the site only opened well in Internet Exploxer.

One current scholar said that The Brain Game riddle was unclear until she had watched the podcast.

No one has interacted with "The Brain Game" so far without prompting.

The first version of the Featured Alumnus Scholar website was altered to a second version with the HomePage created in Flash by Undergraduate Technology Scholar Jason Cooper. This version is guaranteed to open in every browser as long as the user has installed the latest version of Flash.

The Brain Game mouseover "Come play our Brain Game. Say 'I'll play a part'. To get the next clue you must email 'The Heart'" riddle was designed in the image of Gandalf's solving of the riddle of the mines of Moria, in order to get inside. There, his puzzle was "Speak 'Friend' and enter". Frodo figured it out, though...he knew that the answer to the riddle was to say the word 'friend' in Elvish.

http://www.ciser.ttu.edu/hhmi/alumni/featured.aspx

Melody