George School’s award-winning website, http://www.georgeschool.org, was updated this month with two new features—the ability to translate content from English into fifty different languages, and the ability to receive news and events through Real Simple Syndication (RSS).
Recognizing that over 70 percent of Web users do not speak English, George School integrated Google Translate into its website this month. With Google Translate, visitors can select among fifty different languages to read more about George School and its academics, arts, athletics, and service programs in their own languages.
Google Translate is a machine translation service which takes a statistical, rather than a rule-bases approach, toward translating text. To see it in action, click on the Translate button at the bottom left corner of the page and select a language. The automatic translation is shown directly on the page.
“The automatic translation service is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page,” explained Ari Betof, director of enrollment management and strategic planning. “With our international population expanding, it was an important goal to give our visitors the ability to better understand our academic programs and life on campus.”
Also launched this month was the News & Events RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS symbol on our home page in the news section as well as on the main page of the News & Events tab.
The RSS feed is used to publish frequently updated content to a document called a feed. These feeds are delivered automatically to reader, like Google Reader. A subscriber receives automatic updates to their reader detailing the news as it is posted. The reader can display every page selected within a single browser window, and allows one to read the content at his or her leisure. This gives subscribers the latest news from George School without having to check the website daily for updates. A similar RSS feed is available on each of the athletic team home pages and on each of the school calendars.
The two new features will enhance the George School website that has already garnered national attention. In 2009, George School received the Web Marketing Association’s WebAward for Standard of Excellence in the school category. The George School website, designed by mStoner, also won a 2009 Circle of Excellence Award, a professional recognition program run by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). At that time, George School was the only independent school, college, or university to receive a “Complete Institutional Website” Gold Award in three years. The Complete Institutional Website category was judged on the basis of criteria that included sound strategy, sound information architecture, good content, usability, and appropriate use of technology.