Vol. 19, No. 22

March 2, 2000

Surfers can visit campus on
award-winning virtual tour

A brand-new virtual tour of the University of Delaware on the World Wide Web is already walking away with honors, with its selection as the Four-Star Virtual College Tour for March by CampusTours.com <www.CampusTours. com>. The site’s description of UD’s new tour reads, in part, “The University of Delaware’s comprehensive online presentation sets a new standard for virtual college tours by delivering a quality experience with an extensive array of options.” “The Campus Tours Awards Committee found this to be an extremely well-crafted campus expedition…,”the site says. As the tour of the month, UD is featured prominently on CampusTours’s home page, and a link takes readers directly to the UD tour. CampusTours, which reaches thousands of students each day, was recently voted one of the “Top 10 Internet College Resources” in a student survey conducted by Time Magazine and The Princeton Review. Previous winners of the honor include Bates College, Duke, Princeton and Harvard universities and the universities of California at Los Angeles, Massachusetts and North Dakota. “With the expansion of the Internet, more and more visitors to the campus make their first stop on the World Wide Web,” UD President David P. Roselle said. “We have gone to great efforts to ensure that our presence there reflects the excitement and tradition that make our campus so distinctive, and I’m very pleased that our newest effort to welcome everyone to the University has already received this special recognition.” “In 1998, more than 75 percent of college students nationally used the web in their college searches, and we’re well aware of the web’s value in helping to tell the Delaware story,” Fred Siegel, associate provost for enrollment services, said. “This tour is an excellent starting point for anyone encountering UD for the first time. Our hope is that it will serve as a stimulus for our virtual visitors to come see us in person. In fact, the virtual tour has a link to information on how to take a campus walking tour.” The University of Delaware Virtual Campus Tour <www.udel.edu/ tour> showcases aspects of the campus using pictures, text, sound, animation and interactive images. For example, the entry on Memorial Hall includes a brief description and links to a map that shows its location on the central campus; a selection of exterior and interior photos; QTVR panoramic views from the lobby and the Mall just north of the building; a sound file of the carillon playing the alma mater; and a collection of fun facts about the building, including its original cost ($210,000 in 1924). Sections highlight academics and campus life, as well as sights that are unique to UD. An icon of a UD bus helps users navigate the site by going to the next stop, the last stop or back to the tour’s home page. The Virtual College Tour was created by a team with representatives from Management Information Services, Media Services, admissions, alumni and University relations and public relations/photo services. “Our goal,” Joy Lynam, team leader, MIS, said, “was to create a campus tour that would present the campus in a way that reflected its physical beauty as well as UD’s commitment to using technology. We wanted to make sure it was easy to navigate, interesting and fun for the user and clearly representative of UD in spirit and style.” Other members of the campus tour team are John Brennan and Jack Buxbaum, public relations; Sharon Dorr and Christy Pennington, alumni and University relations; Amy Engelson, Blue Hen Ambassadors and public relations; Robert Snyder, admissions; Paul Rickards, Media Services; and April Clark Zappaterrini, MIS.