Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Student Web skills aid non-profits

Photos and story by James Hill

A service-learning project at Portland Community College is linking up Computer Applications and Office Systems students with non-profit organizations across the Portland area. Instructor Doug Kirby’s Web development classes are helping pinpoint problems and inefficiencies with organizations’ Web sites. The students follow a standard process of checking a Web site’s functionality and, in turn, give the non-profits a rundown on the site’s problems. "Under my tutelage, they get to work with a client, meet and lay out a program based on client input and present their findings to the client, as well as the class. It’s a great learning experience,"said Kirby.The students perform Web site analysis and generate an evaluation report that details download speeds, shows search engine rankings, checks popularity of the site, documents ADA compliance and lists technical functionality. In the future, Kirby says he’ll have students build Web sites for faculty, form a student club and create sites for wireless devices.So far, the service-learning project has included five classes over five terms since early 2002. Approximately 75 students have worked on the project and provided reports for more than 60 non-profit Web sites. "My ultimate objective,"said Kirby, "is to build a sequence program. In the next year, if there is enough interest to do this, we’ll be dynamically building Web sites."The non-profit partners, who often don’t have the resources to check their sites, appreciate the work. Greg Belisle at the Robert Gray School in Portland, said he took bits and pieces of the information that the student compiled to make the school’s Web site better. "I took the findings to our Web people and they picked and chose the recommendations. It was good in that it helped us understand what people were looking at."The class age ranges from students their early 20s to late 50s. One highly skilled professional in the course is 56-year-old Arlena Barnes. Barnes has master’s and law degrees from Harvard University. She works in the public sector as an energy attorney and is using Kirby’s classes to obtain her multimedia certificate. "It’s an excellent experience,"said Barnes, who evaluated the Hoyt Arboretum Web site. "It’s one thing to study from the books, but it’s another thing to actually have the experience of doing it for yourself. And you have the chance to work with a client and feel like you can make a contribution."The partners include the surgery department at Oregon Health Sciences University, Oregon Beef Council, Kaiser Permanente, Tualatin Valley Television, Oregon DEQ, The Native Forest Council, Binnesmead Middle School, Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club and more. But it’s the opportunity for the student that means most to Kirby and the students who participate."I’ve never been deeply involved with community colleges before and I’ve found a great deal of support here,"said Barnes. "They are supportive of anyone who wants to learn, wherever you are in life."