Office of Communications Website & Digital Support

How do I get started on creating a website?

Let us help you determine the best place and tools for your website.

• If you need a website for a department, program, or initiative, submit your request through the Communications Request Form (select either “General Consultation” or “Graphic/Digital/Website Design”). 
• If you need a website for a lab or other academic purpose, email AskIT@amherst.edu.
• Not sure? Fill out the Communications Request Form.

Can I hire a student to build a website for my department?

Amherst students are amazing, and we all want to provide opportunities for them to learn. But the practicality of student involvement depends on the project. Before hiring, please contact the Office of Communications for guidance. Request a “General Consultation” via our Communications Request Form.

Can a student build a mobile app or independent website to be used by the College?

Any app or website used and promoted by the College must follow best industry practices and meet stringent standards for accessibility and security. Apps and sites are reviewed by IT and Communications, generally via the procurement process. These reviews require significant staff resources. Also, apps and websites must be updated indefinitely to stay functional, secure, and accessible. After the student graduates and can no longer perform updates, such maintenance falls to staff as extra work on top of maintaining the College’s primary platforms. For these reasons, it usually isn’t practical for the College to support independently built apps and websites. 

Can I build a College-related website on a non-Amherst platform, such as Weebly or Squarespace?

We strongly discourage the use of non-Amherst platforms for several reasons: 

• We cannot guarantee the accessibility or security of a  website whose company doesn’t have a contract with the College. 
• We cannot work with you on non-contracted external sites, and therefore can’t provide design services or help you make your site usable, navigable, search-engine-friendly, or generally effective as a communications vehicle. 
• We can’t maintain your site over time. Websites need frequent updating to keep the content fresh, the search results relevant, and the design current. A dated, forgotten website doesn’t serve anyone well.
• Moving a website from an external service to an Amherst platform (which eventually will happen if the site is to be maintained) is time-consuming. Please let us help you build your site on an Amherst platform to begin with. 

To explore Amherst’s website possibilities, contact the Communications team for a consultation via our Request Form.

As a faculty member, should I build my academic site on the main Amherst College website or in WordPress?

In general, we use the main College website for pages that should be easily found and that should look strongly connected to the College. We have lots of display components that we can use to make your content visually rich. The main College website is usually the best choice for departmental content, and often the best choice for faculty content as well.

The College also maintains a WordPress platform, managed by Academic Technology Services in IT. WordPress might be a better choice if you:

• will be posting frequent blog entries
• are running a multi-college program or something else that is broader than Amherst (such as MassBears)
• need a site that will function primarily as an academic workspace for you and your students (such as a lab site)
• need functionality beyond what the main College website offers

See examples of each platform:

• Examples of academic WordPress sites
• Example faculty member site on the main College site 

To explore possibilities, email AskIT@amherst.edu.

What are display components?

Webpage components hold specific kinds of content. For example, one of our components is a slideshow, while another holds announcements. The “Flexible Callout” component holds an image, title/description, and a button that can link to any page you want. Our components make it easy to add content to our website, because they require no knowledge of code or formatting. See our display components. 

Can the web team customize my webpage display?

We can customize your webpages by using a variety of display components and adding original photos and graphics.

We occasionally customize content manually (we often add small icons to text in articles), but we avoid customizing extensively, because such content is prone to being accidentally disarranged when edited. And there are good reasons to use our components, instead.

For example, we use the “Faculty/Staff Callout” on department contact pages (e.g., Communications staff). This callout pulls photos and data from our campus directory and includes icons and links automatically. Custom layouts for staff contact pages wouldn’t have any of these advantages, and would require far more work to maintain.

Additionally, our components are designed to display optimally across all screen sizes, from small phones to large desktop computers, and are updated as needed in order to stay accessible.