April 8, 2005

College's web site design contest to benefit local non-profit organization

A contest sponsored by Cowley College’s Web Site Production class will culminate with a web site that will be used by a local non-profit organization.

The Arkansas City chapter of Habitat for Humanity will benefit from the Web Site Design Contest, said Mia Allen, Cowley College’s web manager. Allen approached Habitat’s Board of Directors several months ago about the possibility of having contestants design a web site for its chapter. Allen said the response was overwhelming.

“There are several reasons for doing this,” said Allen, who also teaches the Web Site Production class. “It will bring awareness to the new web site program that we’ve put together, it will involve students and invite them to show us their web design skills, and it will benefit and support a non-profit organization in the community.”

Allen said she hoped to work with other non-profit organizations in the future. It gives her students hands-on experience in developing web sites, and a non-profit also benefits.

The contest, which runs April 15 to May 15, is open to any Kansas high school or college student. People may enter individually or as teams. Prizes will be awarded, and students may become eligible for a web design scholarship to Cowley for fall 2005.

Allen said the college was offering new web classes each semester. Those include HTML and XHTML, Flash, Dreamweaver, E-Commerce, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, Computer Graphics, Web Project Management, Web Programming, Web Server Administration, and Web Site Internship.

“This fall, we’re offering Java Script and Flash for the first time,” Allen said. “We’ll continue to offer new classes until we have a whole program for a certificate of completion.”

Allen said web site design was a relatively new area of study and “a lot of colleges don’t offer programs, training or degrees in this area yet.”

“Whoever wins or does well, it will only benefit them for their résumé to display their web design skills,” she said.