...
- The site search doesn't give useful results.
Google AnalyticsAnalytics
A Google Analytics report for 1 March to 31 May 2015 showed us that audiences are using faculty and school sites primarily to access the following information.
...
- Who to contact
- Staff profiles
- Subjects and programmes - undergrad and postgrad (this traffic is likely to come in via the site search)
- Admin info for current students (eg, facilities, building access hours, academic transcripts, faculty handbook, forms)
- Accessing centres and institutes.
...
School site:
- Who to contact
- Staff profiles
- Subjects, programmes and courses - undergrad and postgrad
- Scholarships and awards and exchanges
- News
- Events
- Student profiles - eg, research students
- Accessing centres and institutes.
User sessions
Victoria students
In July 2015 the WIP2 web project team held sessions with six current Victoria students from a range of study areas. Five were undergraduate and one was postgraduate.
All the students had very low engagement with the 'Vic website' (a term they used to include F&S sites). These students reported that they use the 'Vic website' to meet a very narrow range of needs: find a person, get course info or access a shortcut to a tool (via the header menu). One student indicated that he also uses the Vic website to access information on dates, grades, timetables and similar - this content is in 'Current students'.
When accessing staff profiles, students used search and therefore didn't visit the home page of the faculty or school site where the profile was located. They thus missed news, events and other features on the home page.
The students identified email and BlackBoard as their preferred channels for information from Victoria, with all students also following relevant pages on Facebook.
The undergraduate students didn't understand that faculty and school sites existed as separate sites. When we pointed out to one student that she was on a separate school site, she commented: “This should all be one thing – school, faculty and Victoria. And it is all the same thing. We are one university and there is no reason why it can’t all be together."
The postgraduate student had greater awareness of separate faculty and school sites, but said she only used the school site for staff info - so she could find out the room number for a staff member. Occasionally she might look at pics of staff members "to see who they are"; or might use staff profiles to find out "which Dean to talk to for which thing". She didn't use faculty or school sites, or the Victoria website, for anything else.
Three students stated that they didn't trust the web content because it might be inaccurate or out of date: they would email or phone someone to check.
Secondary school students
- Search results were sometimes swamped with results from F&S sites, which could be confusing.
- When looking for information about a staff member, students invariably used search and therefore missed the home page of a F&S site.
...
Victoria University website: where it's going
...