@jcummings1974 I agree with @msteciuk, there is potential with the coverflow functionality. The images (thumbnails?) are too blurry imho and like msteciuk, I think there is more value in showing something other than screenshots of webpages. Hence my flippant comment earlier. I also wonder how indexing will occur for all that flash-based content. Yes, I've heard that flash will be indexed but it's still not going to be as "indexable" as text or image alts.
 ericstoller

@jcummings1974 - although I'm not personally involved in the project, I know of a unit at my U that's looking down that gun barrel. ;) I think they're lurking around here somewhere and I'm sure will be looking for a shoulder to cry on soon, so it's nice of you to offer.
 msteciuk

Who is this TAdams character ;-)??? Never heard of them. The eduStyle comment community hits hard, like really hard.
 ericstoller

@ericstoller Thanks, I guess. Not sure how that's really helpful to me - but I do appreciate you taking the time to comment. In fairness, I've seen Biola, Stanford, etc. - just though we'd go out on a limb and try something a little different for a Uni. I get that it's not the normal style of a college site, and realize it'll land for some, and for others it won't. In other news, I don't know if anyone here is trying to user MOSS 2007 for CMS - but I've been tasked with doing that at MU - and we're starting to put out the first few public pages entirely driven by Sharepoint 2007. The first launch was our First Year Experience site (fye.marshall.edu), and I just threw up a Sharepoint based site to help our departmental developers (muweb.marshall.edu/webteam). If anyone is going down the Sharepoint CMS path and needs to talk through their challenges - you can ping me. Twitter me at jcummings1974 and I'll DM back the email addy. Thanks to everybody for the feedback so far.
 jcummings1974

@webmasterneal : I can definitely sympathize and understand your situation given you were the victim of a blatant steal. But in this case I honestly don't think there was a rip-off here. I went back and revisited this site and honestly don't really see ANY similarities other than the color scheme and having a left navigation with audience paths in one color and primary nav in another. (which by no means is a rip-off in my book, or even an influence necessarily) I think if this institution didn't have orange as a color, and this design was presented in blue, red, green, or any other color, that we wouldn't even be having this discussion. And don't worry about being a "troll", personally I think we need more "hard-hitters" here at Edustyle willing to speak their minds.
 TAdams

@msteciuk lol. exactly. some sites crack me up.
 ericstoller

i noticed some similarities to Cornell's site too. A css file, divs and (gasp) a footer! ;-)
 ericstoller

I do have a stake in web design/code ripoff, which is why I'm being such a troll here: Exhibit A: My previous job was maintaining this website: http://www.lakeland.edu (I did not design the site but inherited from the previous guy, I've since taken a job elsewhere) Exhibit B: Some artard that stole our design, our code, and OUR Google Analytics tracking code: http://www.widemolay.org/ Now these guys did go a few steps further than utpb but they got caught. We can argue here all day if we want but I'm willing to bet my life savings, my :first-child and the farm that the utpb designer(s) visited edustyle, have seen the utk site and based their design on that website. I think that the current "5 not my style" are proof enough that it was a poor choice, at the minimum in the edustyle community, and I'll let the votes do the talking for me from now on.
 WebmasterNeal

Agreed, it's not horrible, but does need a bit of work. The flash navigation is in desperate need of some rollovers and the site as a whole is in dire need of a line-height adjustment for content. The interior page designs just aren't meshing well with me either, I feel they could use a bit of work. But overall it's a nice job that could be great with some polish.
 TAdams

I appreciate the creativity here, but it just isn't executed that well in my opinion.
 TAdams