CSAC suggestions for LBNL Home Web Page

(DRAFT)

    During its January meeting, CSAC raised the issue of reviewing the LBNL home web page. The committee was concerned that the LBNL home page did not adequately emphasize the Lab's scientific research work, and hence the intrinsic significance of the Lab's mission. At this meeting, CSAC resolved to invite Ron Kolb and Jeff Kahn of LBNL's Public Information Department to attend the February meeting (Feb 5th) to fully discuss this issue.

    This memo is a result of the February 5th presentation and subsequent discussion between CSAC and Ron Kolb, Jeff Kahn, and Lynn Yarris.

  1. CSAC would like to present the point of view of its members, the many scientists representing all the LBNL divisions, and to make some suggestions for how the LBNL home page could be improved. Also, given Lab approval, CSAC is prepared to act as an advisory committee to PID on the contents and presentation of the LBNL Home Page.

  2. The present layout of the LBNL Home Page is attractive, but fails to lend sufficient weight to the Lab's scientific work. CSAC members are generally happy with the top half of the page, with its changing images and the possibility to learn about the research represented in each image through the articles from the Lab Research Review magazine. However, we feel that it would be appropriate to improve the information presented on the Home Page by adding direct links to related LBNL scientific pages, related paper/publications and particularly LBNL scientific reports.
          During the discussion of this subject we realized that there is a problem with the online publication of LBNL reports. In fact, they are currently only listed in an online catalog and only available in printed form upon request. We realize that this is a different issue, nevertheless we thought we would bring it up in this context hoping to have it solved in order to allow broader distribution of LBNL reports in the future.
          We appreciate that there is work in progress to improve the Lab's index and search facility by establihing an LBNL intranet and a Lab-wide search engine. We think that it is crucial to have access to the global information regarding LBNL in an easier and more effective way.

  3. The bottom half of the page starts with a statement about how the Lab is operated. We think that a clear, but brief, description of the Lab's scientific mission would be appropriate here, preceding the current statement. In addition, it would also help from the point of view of PR with the local community, to stress explicitly that we are conducting basic research (and not classified activities, nor weapons development).

  4. Below the operating statement are eight major headings. SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS is just one of these, sharing equal billing with GENERAL INFORMATION, NEWS CENTER, PUBLICATIONS, EDUCATIONAL SITES, OUR WORKPLACE, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER and RELATED INSTITUTIONS.
          Under the SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS heading, only two additional links are listed, namely National User Facilities and Computing Sciences. It is true that a click on the heading takes the user to a list of the scientific divisions, but the misleading first impression from the home page is that the Lab carries out scientific research in just two areas -- Computing Sciencies and National User Facilities. While we would like to see a complete redesign of this part of the home page, a minimal change would be to add a line reading "Scientific Divisions" to the National User Facilities and Computing Sciences lines.
          We believe that an improved LBNL home would highlight the link to the Lab's SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS and Divisions above all the other links, by separating it from the rest. In the current page layout, this link is just listed among the many other ones. In other cases, additional links are explicitly listed, for example the ones for the EDUCATIONAL SITES. We fully understand and believe that public outreach through educational activities is vital to the future of the scientific fields. On the other hand, by listing all of the pages related to this subject, while neglecting any other link related to the Lab's scientific work, gives an unbalanced impression of the Lab's mission. The same criteria obviously apply to other links on the page. Again, this can be simply solved by highlighting the SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS link.

  5. In order to achieve a better balance, and a more complete scientific representation of the Lab, we think that, together with Computing Sciences the three other main scientific areas (following the organizational chart of the Laboratory) should be listed on the home page, namely: General Sciences, Biosciences, and Energy Sciences. This would also require that three new sub-pages are created, with links to the related divisions. "National User Facilities", a very important link on its own, should be listed separately and could actually be made more visible.

  6. Similar criteria apply to the "Current Job Openings" page. Currently, the "Scientific" link appears under "Further Opportunities" (not even as a category of its own) well below "Computing Sciences" with many sub-categories, and "Genomics". This gives the impression that scientific jobs outside computing and genome are of secondary importance in the Lab. We think that "Scientific" should become an additional main category in this page, perhaps with a few sub-categories listed.

    Our concerns about the LBNL web page are intended to be constructive, and are motivated by the our interest in demonstrating to the public that LBNL is a place where a very broad range of science is done. We trust that Lab management will receive them in this light.