Page 10 - 2016Spring

From the Web Office Manager | Daniel Farrell
It is only fitting that the first article written by the ASA Web Office be published in Acoustics Today because the first major effort by the of- fice was the creation of http://
acousticstoday.org. Responsible for the Acoustical Society of America’s “web presence,” the first challenge to present itself was Editor Arthur Popper’s request in February of 2014 to have a stand alone website for Acoustics Today. Goals includ- ed open access to articles and engaging visuals for members, and equally importantly, for non-members of the Society. Expanding the digital footprint of the Acoustical Society be- yond its core membership has been very successful. Acous- ticsToday.org represents the very best of the Society on the net. Of the hundreds of signups for online newsletter alerts for AcousticsToday.org, 84% percent are from non-ASA members.
Since launching AcousticsToday.org, the ASA web office has designed, created, and delivered “admin” ownership for more than 50 web sites for Technical Committees, Regional Chapters, Student Chapters, Student Council, Standards, Publishing, and Administrative Committees. A full list of these committees can be seen at http://acousticalsociety.org. Each of these new web properties is built with a very user- friendly, drag-and-drop page layout, and a content manage- ment system that allows non-technical users to add fresh content easily. All of these ASA groups are now able to use their own state-of-the-art website as a central hub for their ASA committee or group activities.
In concert with this expanding digital footprint, the ASA Web Office is also pleased to announce that our new tech support site, http://asaweboffice.org, is now live. This new site will provide tech support to all ASA web properties via training videos, royalty free stock photos, and a support tick- eting system to trouble-shoot individual committee website issues.
The Next Big Thing...
A major overhaul of ASA’s premier website, acousticalsociety. org, is planned to get underway in 2016. A Web Office Ad- visory Committee is being formed to provide advice, over- sight, and approval for all of ASA’s web design standards. ASA wants to ensure that there is a commonality “look and
8 | Acoustics Today | Spring 2016
feel” and quality of presentation for all of our web pages so that any viewer, visiting any website designed by ASA, in- stantly knows they have landed on an ASA property. We will apply these new standards to all current ASA affiliated sites, but the re-design of acousticalsociety.org will be the flagship effort for this Web Standards initiative in 2016.
Apple News is Here...
A few weeks ago, Apple Computer released its first news ag- gregator app called Apple News. The ASA Web Office was successful is gaining approval for the Acoustical Society of America News Channel that is now available to over 1 bil- lion iPhone and IPad users worldwide. Users simply need to “favorite” a search result for the term Acoustical Society, and the ASA channel appears, front and center, on their home page. The fact that the native app is “built” into every IOS device is critical. Viewers do not have to install anything. They simply search and save our channel.
Presently the Acoustical Society of America News Channel displays three sections: RSS feeds of articles from JASA, Acoustics Today, and also the “lay lan- guage” papers that are presented at the bi-annual meetings and featured on http://acoustics.org/.
The Web Office plans to create a means for authors to sub- mit new material to be vetted for publication in Apple News. Combined with articles already published in JASA, POMA, JASA-EL, Acoustics Today, and other ASA media platforms, we will be able to create an Apple News Library so there will always be fresh material in the queue for this important new publishing platform.
Social Media...
The ASA Web Office is furthering the Society’s efforts in the realm of social media. Thanks to our Acoustics Today in- tern Laura Kloepper, we started a Twitter program in 2014. That, along with this year’s skilled and insightful efforts by Dr. Lawrence Norris, https://twitter.com/acousticsorg now boasts 1,981 followers and close to 2,500 tweets. More im- pressive, however, are our engagement statistics.
Along with AcousticsToday.org and Apple News, this social media outreach via Twitter is truly expanding the digital footprint of the Society beyond its traditional core member-