What software should we use to make a website?

You can setup your own Wiki, or use something like Moodle http://moodle.org/ which is somewhat similar to Blackboard or the old WebCT.

my personal favorite software would be Macromedia Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver would probably be out of the scope of beginning users due to the learning curve. I think that there are some "off the shelf" and open source solutions that would better suit their needs.

I will second mirza: Adobe (previously macromedia) Dreamweaver is the one of the best user friendly web developing programs if you are building a website. It can be as simple as dragging stuff to a page and designing it. or You can get more complex and work straight with the code.

But as glial said, there are other programs that you work with templates and just change stuff you need changed. That might be best for your needs (as it sounds like you can use a wiki) I'll poke around on the tubes and see what I can find for you.

Also weebly.com is an easy-to-use free tool for designing web pages

@perchik: when did Macromedia become Adobe?

I am so happy to hear your thoughts. Thank you for helping us out! It is hard for me to ask for help, because I don't speak Website. I will try to be more specific with our needs: We have a lot of content that we'd like to plug into an already built website to share and get feedback. We cannot program or design anything. We need to be secure, because it is unpublished data. We may have some support from the university, but very very minimal. veeeeery minimal... Thanks!

Who made the previous website? I'd suggest talking to that person/group of people.

There isn't one!

If you need secure information sharing, you don't want a website as much as you want a web-based service.

Check out Basecamp from 37signals. You can share files and give everyone a secure login.

Some of Basecamp's features might be overkill, but I think some kind of project management web app is what you need. Basecamp is one of those, but there are definitely others out there.

Adobe purchased Macromedia December 3, 2005.

It sounds like you're looking primarily for a place to post and discuss information, which I think a wiki would be perfect for. I'm a big fan of pbwiki - you can set up a private wiki for free - give it a password, so that your whole group can see it, and then you can create as many pages as you want, upload files, and edit and comment on each other's content. It doesn't take any specific design/programming skills, and the guys who run pbwiki are really helpful when you get stuck.

Check it out and see what you think - and if you have any questions about how it works, send me a message - I'd be happy to help! =)

These are wonderful suggestions, all of them. Thank you so much. I will open this page at our joint group meeting on Thursday and show everybody and discuss our options!

http://www.tubesnow.com/ - just launched a new feature yesterday and it is by far one of the easiest content publishing tools

Notepad.