Dear UTAR's IT Department

For many years now, the UTAR official website has been notorious for being annoyingly bland and sufficiently unattractive. The predominantly simple background and monotonous texts not only reflect poorly on the university's savvy (or lack of it) when it comes to webpage designing but also denigrates the varsity's reputation as a whole.

As a matter of fact, a friend who is studying at a university in New Zealand once told me that the UTAR website was used as a "don't" example during his webpage designing lesson (the veracity of his statement though remains uncontested). Now, wouldn't you agree that this calls for a reform?

First impression matters and in this scenario, I daresay that the website is not doing any justice to the university's image in its mission to be at the pinnacle of education among other respectable groves of academe.  In this day and age of technological advancement, the Internet is the primary source of information for prospective students when they are shopping for their choice of education. It shouldn't as a surprise then that the university's official webpage will pop up at the top of the search. However, given the mediocre page layout, the aforementioned students might be deterred from exploring the site more extensively.

Aesthetics aside, what bothered me the most is the fact that the website lacks information that is vital for prospective students. Take the Faculty of Arts and Social Science's page as an example, the Department of Journalism specifically. I was gobsmacked when I discovered that there were hardly any information on the page except for the course structure and synopsis. Even that particular info hasn't been updated since 2009!

Some might argue that the basics such as admission and academic course information are provided. The way I see it, the information just border on a superficial front. What about those who would want more in-depth details? On this, the naysayers would probably refute by claiming that students can head on to the campuses and talk to the counselors. But wouldn't it be less of a hassle for both the students and parents if they can get as much information as possible through the online medium?

In fact, all these extensive information might wow the students and prompt them to head on to the campus and check out the surrounding of the university. Besides, a hundred trees could be saved along the way by limiting the number of glossy pages in the varsity's prospectus booklet.

Putting negative remarks aside, I have to concur that UTAR has made some vast improvements to it's webpage in recent times. The IT department is even doing a great job at ensuring a smoother process during the course registration period (partly thanks to the efforts of a certain Students' Council no doubt). However, these improvements are coming at a painstakingly slow pace.

The esteemed President of UTAR, Ir. Professor Dato' Dr Chuah Hean Teik mentioned that he "hope that as you take a glimpse of UTAR on our website, you will take the first step towards joining our thriving UTAR community" in his welcome message.

In this case, I'd say that the glimpse offered on the website is a less than spectacular one. A shame really considering the fact that this academic institution has state of the art facilities and exceptional as well as experienced teaching staff but that image is shattered by a lackluster first impression in the form of its website.

Yours faithfully

Chester Chin