The Student Government's new Web site will include opinion forums and regularly updated content when it is completed in time for the beginning of Welcome Week.
The new system will make it easier to get news, events and pictures on the site. SG directors will be able to add content themselves, instead of filing an update request with the webmaster, according to Ben Murray, the SG's director of information technology.
"Past SG sites were mired in static content that was difficult to update, thus often rendering the information and events out-of-date and irrelevant to student visitors," Murray said.
The opinion forums will be similar to those on www.dailyjolt.com, another student- run website for the AU community, said SG Secretary Joe Vidulich.
JobCorps, a tool for connecting job seekers with employers, will undergo major changes in the spring to make its content easier to manage. The site is the SG's most popular feature, and allows students to sort through job postings and employers to search for workers.
Among other problems with the old site, JobCorps was shut down for one week at the beginning of July when an anonymous user posted private contact information for Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to Vidulich.
The information could not be easily deleted due to a flaw in the system. Murray said he's since made changes to avoid this type of problem.
The previous site, studentconfederation.org, redirects users to the new site, www.ausg.org. The SG changed its name from Student Confederation last fall when it adopted a new constitution, citing the inapplicability of the term "confederation" to the body's structure and the association of the word with the Civil-War era southern states, The Eagle previously reported.
