Office for Information Technology
WIT Projects - 2008
Cognitive Science
The Cognitive Science program needs a website that describes the concentration. This website should contain a list of events or highlights on the home page, a description of current faculty, the names of current and past concentrators, a listing of course offerings, and a detailed paragraph about the program. If there is time at the end of the project, a chatbot will be added to the site. This chatbot should allow Professor Zaki to easily input her own content.
Data Visualization
This project involved creating time-lapse movies that showed visual changes as well as energy output fluctuations of the 7.2 kW solar array on the roof of the Morley Science Center. The movies, spanning from July 2007 to June 2008, comprise sequences of hourly solar array images synchronized with a dynamic chart dispalying each image's corresponding energy output. Organized into monthly and entire year clips, the movies capture the solar array in different weather conditions and their effect on energy output. The movies will be used in the future by students in GEOS 206 - Renewable Energy and the Sustainable Campus, as well as future interns in the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives.
Historical Aerial Photograph
Professors Hank Art and David Dethier would like us to design an application for a database of historical aerial photographs. The application will tell the user what photographs are available containing any point that they click on a base map. This project will also require a guide describing the process of georeferencing. This also needs to describe the process of adding a georeferenced photo to a database that will allow the photo to appear in the application.
Hopkins Observatory
The Hopkins Observatory needs a new webpage that describes its history through a series of pages each containing text and photos. The history will be divided into small sections. We will work closely with Jay Pasachoff's summer students in order to edit the text and take appropriate photos for each page. The webpage should also have a schedule of Planetarium shows that can be updated easily.
Jewish Society
This website is to serve as a medium for disseminating information about Jewish Life at Williams and current and upcoming events. It is targeted at prospective Jewish students and current students alike.
Math/Stat Dept. Blog

The Mathematics and Statistics department needs a blog that is to be incorporated into a site that better informs prospective and current majors as well as faculty in and outside Williams about the department. The blog will be department-wide and will allow faculty to have intellectual discussions with control capabilities for outside posts. The site will feature the activities of the department on campus as well as that of the faculty. Wordpress will be utilized for the blog.
New Employee Orientation
This software allows HR to orient their new employees over the web. New employees are only shown information that is relevant to them. This information is filtered using a set of parameters that are set before hand by an administrator when the new employee is added. The content of the Orientation program is very easily updateable through an extremely user-friendly administrative interface. Future Developments could include storing some choices that users make while going through the system and printing out a report at the end.
Obrecht
The project was to create a website to document Jacob Obrecht's St. Donation Mass. The site will feature an introduction to the mass, a player for segments of the reenactment, annotated scores for segments of the mass, and a lot of content pages.
Online Tutorial
The Online Citation Tutorial is a website commissioned by the Library and Academic Resources, intended to present a linear tutorial and navigable guide on citation, documentation, and study habits for new and returning Williams students. The content will be largely adapted from a UCLA site of a similar nature, and modified for relevance to the Williams community, and for increased visual stimulation.
Pod/Vod Cast on Summer Science Program
The project was to create both a 10-minute podcast and a 10-minute vodcast that focus on the interaction between students and faculty doing scientific research at Williams. The episode is also available on YouTube
Simulation Game
The experiential learning project is a real-world simulation of a day in the life of a food pantry director. There are four scenarios, each of which includes the food pantry director and her interactions with a food pantry visitor. The game-player watches the short animations, makes decisions as the food pantry director and then witnesses the consequences of his choice. The simulation plays in Adobe Flash and is intended for use in Economics 205, a class at Williams about public policy.
TNYC
A web site as a recruiting tool for Williams students choosing a Winter Study course.
Virtual Tour

Virtual Admission Tour is a website targeted towards Williams prospective students to form a vivid image of the campus through its collection of images, descriptions and interactive map. The interactive elements of the website makes it fun and and user friendly while conveying important information about the College in a fun way.
Women and Gender Studies
Professor Kent wanted a new website for the Women's & Gender Studies program. The old website had outdated information and design, so Professor Kent wanted a complete overhaul of the site with a new look, current information, and the ability to update the website as needed.
WOOLF
A website used to advertise to and inform prospective and current WOOLF participants.


