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University websites
Google this … if you can
Mariana Marin
What do Cambridge University, Harvard, Yale or even Petrosani University all have in common? Tough question I know, but the answer is both simple and painful: they all have websites that are better than our own at the University of Bucharest (www.unibuc.ro).
No, this is not a joke; it was the conclusion I reached after making a comparison between these college websites. As a student at the University of Bucharest, I would have preferred to say that my university’s website was of the same quality of Cambridge or Harvard. But the truth is that even the website of a much smaller Romanian institution like the one from Petrosani beats ours’ in many respects. This is an important matter.
A university website is its window to the world – the way it presents itself to outsiders. So it had better be good.
Starting with its rudimentary graphics, the website of the most famous and the biggest Romanian university looks like an abandoned, seldom-visited space. If, for instance, you are interested in finding out about scholarships, then the only information you will get, except the scholarships offered by the government, is three years old because no-one has updated it since 2003. Also, there are many sections left empty, giving you the sensation that you have entered a howling virtual void.
For visitors, things are even more complicated. In order to get information from this website, they have to subscribe -- but here comes the hilarious part: there is no field in which to do so.
Another aspect which caught my eye was the fact that the front page has two visible buttons which lead you to the same place called “weekly news.” Another very small link on the right-hand column takes you to a page they call “other news” which is actually updated more often. Why downplay your own fresh news? It’s as if they don’t want anyone to read it.
I tried to find out why this site looks confusing, giving visitors the impression they would be wasting their time there. I spoke to the university’s public affairs office but failed to get much concrete information. They assured me they were trying to deal with the problem but could give no actual details to me, a mere student.
With our country about to join the European Union, more and more people will be looking at our university website. As foreign students are attracted to study here, the demand for information will grow. They need to be able to surf a proper website instead of stumbling into a maze.
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