Released June 12, 2009
AMES, Iowa – The U.S. Pork Center of Excellence and Kansas State University have updated the Pork Information Gateway (PIG) to create a more user-friendly Web site. The updates feature a new site design and a home page featuring up-to-date pork headlines that can be seen at http://ksu.porkgateway.com.
“The U.S. Pork Center of Excellence and all its partners are always looking for ways to improve collaboration and communication,” said the center’s executive director David Meisinger. “The Pork Information Gateway has become a very popular Web site with over two million hits last year and over 10,000 pieces of information. We wanted to make it more modern in its appeal, more user-friendly in its application and more complete in its content. We are addressing all of these points to make this popular Web site even more useful.”
New features on the site include a home page featuring pork headlines and commentaries; links to news, markets and weather information; and drop-down menus to organize content. Other changes include the addition of a “Niche Production” domain and updates to PIG Opportunities. The Web site updates greatly enhance the scope of information available for U.S. pork producers by providing a more usable and intuitive information gateway.
PIG was launched in 2006 and is an online resource tool that is free to the U.S. pork industry. To see the upgrades—or to see the site for the first time—visit http://ksu.porkgateway.com. Visitors to the site must be registered to see much of the content but registration is free and visitors’ information is secure in the confidential database.
The U.S. Pork Center of Excellence was established in 2005 as a public/private partnership to bring together academic expertise in research, teaching and extension related to pork production. The center is housed at the National Swine Research and Information Center on the Iowa State University campus. There are two governmental agencies, both national pork industry associations, 17 state pork producer associations and 28 land-grant universities involved in the coalition.
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http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ksrenews/story/pork_information061209.aspx
Source: Joel DeRouchey, 785-532-2280, jderouch@ksu.edu
Editor: Katie Beeler, kbeeler@iastate.edu