Educating Students on the World of Microbiology

American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) had two sites, http://www.microbe.org/ and http://www.microbeworld.org/, that were last updated in 1999, had a lot of redundant content, were hard to navigate, and did not reflect the hip brand that ASM's student-focused Microbeworld Radio podcast series was creating.

Spectrum was asked to combine the two sites into a new http://www.microbeworld.org/, integrate the National Educational Science Standards, and revamp the site to appeal to both 5-12 grade students, educators and the general public. The primary goal was to make microbiology appealing to those that would normally not be interested, and to spread the word about Microbeworld.

Spectrum developed a new information architecture for the site that combined the content from both sites in a non-redundant, logical and user-friendly way based on analysis of the existing sites, creative strategy and competitor analysis.

The home page features a rotating interview of a current microbiologist, a Microbeworld Radio Flash player that pulls the latest podcast from the XML feed, current microbiology news hand-picked by ASM editors and delivered via RSS, and a rotating introduction to the various microbes that are in our world.

The site features details of all types of microbes, the history of microbiology, career profiles, and fun facts about microbes. There are resources for parents and educators including a photo gallery and science experiments based on the National Educational Science Standards. Students and teachers alike can keep up on current events in the news section, subscribing to an RSS feed if they wish. Students can e-vite a friend to check out the site by choosing one of four e-mail designs and writing a custom message. They can also download a screensaver for their desktop. The audio and video podcasts are available through the live Flash player which can be opened for listening as the viewer explores the site, through one-click subscriptions through popular podcast aggregators like iTunes, and downloadable through the archives. The podcast archives contain information on the episode's original air date, program summary, transcript, and institution source. All podcasts are categorized and subcategorized according to the National Educational Science Standards, can be filtered in multiple ways, and can be searched by keyword.

The site is maintained by the client using Macromedia Contribute and Dreamweaver Templates, along with detailed documentation and a style guide written by Spectrum.

The site is ICRA-rated for child-safe content and is compliant with numerous browsers, versions, platforms and W3C standards for maximum accessibility. The toolbar located on every page allows visitors to bookmark the page in their del.icio.us directory, or increase and decrease the font size so the site can be used in a classroom and viewed by all.

The 300+ page site, launched in time for the 2006/2007 school year.