Durham, NC - Duke University on Wednesday launched a new version of its award-winning daily news site, Duke Today, to better serve the university's diverse audiences and promote community through social media and other tools.

Enhancing its role as the university's central source of news and information, the site has expanded to include more sections and a larger selection of news. Initially, it has two sections: one about news of broad interest- such as major announcements, academic advances and research discoveries- and another about campus services updates, benefits, staff profiles and other information of special interest to Duke's faculty and staff.

The site will eventually expand to include sections for other topics or audiences, such as for opinions or alumni, resembling the formats of major online newspapers.

Duke Today can be accessed at www.today.duke.edu.

"When Duke Today was introduced in 2006, it set a new standard for internal communications in higher education by aggregating content from across the university," said Michael Schoenfeld, Duke's vice president for public affairs and government relations. "This approach allowed us to better represent the breadth of intellectual endeavor across the university as well as the benefits and resources of interest to faculty and staff." 

"Since then, many universities have emulated the Duke Today model, even down to the look and feel of the original site. But five years is an eternity in communications, and the landscape has transformed significantly with the emergence of social media and mobile applications."

The site's new version enables readers to better track the news that most interests them by customizing the topics they want to follow from 40 categories, ranging from "natural sciences" to "discounts." They can follow these stories in "My Headlines" or send them to an RSS reader, such as iGoogle. They also can sign up to receive newsletters and other Duke material.

In addition, the site incorporates Facebook features that enable users to see what their friends are reading and to share stories on their own Facebook pages. Members of the campus community also can post comments on selected stories or join conversations on Twitter.

Duke Today features videos from Duke on Demand, the university's video site with more than 4,000 videos, and a "Gallery" section with multimedia features, including slideshows. Other sections include "Duke in the News," classified ads and highlights from the campus calendar.

David Jarmul, associate vice president for news and communications, and Paul Grantham, assistant vice president for communications service, led the team that created the new site. Geoffrey Mock, the founding editor of Duke Today, is continuing as the editor of its news section, and Leanora Minai is the editor of the Working@Duke section. Duke Web Services, part of Duke's Office of Information Technology, designed and built the site.

Since being launched five years ago, Duke Today has received national and regional awards for its overall quality.