Benjamin Clark

Job description forthcoming.

As Coordinator of Information Services, I worked in three distinct roles:

1. College webmaster — I managed the College's primary web presence, as well as most units within the College. I advocated for a transition from static HTML pages to the Drupal content management system. I developed and supervised the development of custom Drupal modules and themes as needed. I developed Drupal-powered Intranet applications to aid the academic advising faculty & staff.
2. IT coordinator — I supervised IT support for the Dean's Office, Advising Office, and all other 1st floor units. My staff and I also provided IT support for the entire College when needed. This would often include direct interaction in addition to my supervisory role. I spearheaded the College's inclusion in the FSU Active Directory deployment, and administered workstations accordingly.
3. Server administrator — I served as the College's Linux & Windows server administrator. I migrated our production & development web services from IIS to a dedicated Gentoo Linux server. Later, to save on costs & to mitigate future hardware issues, I moved our production web services to a Solaris zone on a shared server at FSU. I also served as administrator for two Windows Server installations, and an additional Linux data server.

Supervisory experience included three part-time computer lab assistants (1/07-12/07), one part-time technical support assistant (1/07-5/10), and one part-time web assistant (6/08-5/10). As supervisor, I gained experience in the hiring process, interviewing and selecting my assistants. I also aided the College in hiring and training my replacement.

I worked as the senior Web assistant under the Senior Computer Support Specialist, taking over all webmaster duties for the College. I began the process of evaluating content management systems, and began work on several internal web applications. I also helped administer the web server that housed our College web presence. Also during this time, I trained with my supervisor so that I could replace him when he left the position in December. This multi-month overlap period allowed the College to have a seamless transition.

While I pursued my PhD at Indiana University, I worked as the (part-time) Technical Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication under Editor Susan Herring. My primary role was preparing each issue of the Journal so that it would be published on-time and error free. I converted academic papers from various formats to XHTML, conforming to the established Journal style guidelines. I also advised editorial staff on technical matters relating to the hosting and development of the Journal.

As a full-time graduate student at Florida State University, I worked as the (part-time) Web assistant at the College of Social Sciences (now College of Social Sciences & Public Policy). I functioned as the assistant Webmaster under the Senior Computer Support Specialist. I worked to unify disparate departmental websites under the College look-and-feel, established by templates I developed for the primary College site. I managed all content updates for the primary College site. I also developed a proprietary content management system powered by Perl and ASP (VBScript).

As Web Developer for the Dept of Modern Languages, I helped establish the department's initial web presence. I helped gather necessary content from various faculty & staff. This was a project completed part-time in one semester as an undergraduate at FSU. I remained employed by the department for two additional semesters to assist with content updates.

I was hired by WWSB-TV to create a new website powered by a custom-tailored content management system. My initial effort while an employee of Florida Network Technologies, Inc., established a web presence with editable News and Sports sections, but their needs quickly expanded beyond the capabilities of those simple Perl scripts.

I chose to develop the new backend in ASP (VBScript), utilizing MS-SQL under a IIS/Windows 2000 Server environment. The new site would now have multiple dynamic sections in addition to News and Sports, which now also had a publicly available Archive.

While my Web development role was independent, it was necessary to work with and enlist the help of multiple departments. I worked with the Engineering staff to link the weather system to the website, providing up to the minute radar and forecast information. I worked with the Graphics department to mirror the look of the broadcast. I worked with the Sales staff to establish our own Advertising subsystem, creating a new sales opportunity for the station.

I maintained a support contract with WWSB-TV from Aug 2000 through May 2006, during which time I supervised the development of a new site-wide template. I also developed many additional dynamic sub-sections of the site, and added capabilities to existing sections as requested. In 2006, I assisted with the transition to a more contemporary content management system, developed by a third party.

I was a customer of Florida Network Technologies, Inc., and received a mass e-mail from FLnet looking for a part-time office assistant. I was still in high school (in between junior and senior years) and applied. Impressed with my technical knowledge, I was quickly hired, and grew into the position. After six months, I found myself heading up the Web development arm of the business. At one point, I was the sole employee, handling all customer support (account creation, troubleshooting, etc.) for the Internet services in addition to Web development.

The Web development tasks included creating websites for small businesses in the Sarasota, Florida area. One one of our prominent clients was the local ABC affiliate, WWSB-TV, ABC 40. I developed a rudimentary Perl-based content management system with a flat-file database backend. I rotated 10 articles at a time for the News and Sports sections, and provided some basic support for editing other sections of the otherwise-static website. Impressed by my work on this system, I would later be hired by WWSB-TV themselves to re-make the website with even more capabilities.