FEB/MAR 2005
Volume 11 - No. 1
Research Activities at a Featured Program
SRNT Newsletter
February/March 2005, Volume 11, Number 1
SRNT Website Updates
As the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco approached its tenth year, it became apparent that the SRNT website was no longer fully capable of meeting the needs of the Society. The decision was made to overhaul the website to make it a more useful communication tool for the membership.
In October of 2003, the SRNT Website Committee was formed. The committee members are Rick Brown, Chair, Judith Gordon, Jean-Francois Etter, Jonathan Foulds, Joe Gitchell and TRG Vice President, John Hofmann. Karen Saules also joined the committee with her tenure as Newsletter Editor.
The committee looked at improving usability, arrangement of information, timeliness of materials, and design. A design was chosen that we felt would be able to meet these needs. The menu system is easy to navigate and expand for website additions. It is accessible by people using assistive technologies for browsing the web. The home page was designed to always be current with the latest SRNT news. Integration of the newsletter with the website helps keep the content fresh. The new site was introduced during the SRNT Annual meeting in February, 2004.
To help with increased communication loads for SRNT and to support a new "members only" section, The Rees Group, Inc. has invested in a new T1 line, database and web servers and upgraded Macromedia ColdFusion support. New listserv software was implemented in July, 2004.
With this newsletter release, the Website Committee also announces the release of phase one of the "members only" section. This introduces a more reliable member database and the ability to update your membership records in real time. With this base product in place, we will be able to integrate abstract submission as well as online voting on important SRNT business. We hope you have found the website revisions useful and welcome any feedback you may have on improvements or enhancements. Please send any comments or suggestions to John Hofmann jhofmann@reesgroupinc.com .