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- The current information architecture (IA) is under review, including top menu items and second-level navigation options.
- Work to improve the site search is underway.
- Improvements to staff profiles have been proposed by the WIP2 project team, who are having discussions about this with ITS.
- Scoping work is underway to provide an information page that sits 'behind' every site page, and can be accessed by staff. This would provide detail on the page's purpose, target audiences, content owner, core analytics (eg, number of views of the page, average time spent on page) and similar things.
- The effectiveness of both News and Events is being considered and solutions discussed to bring about improvements.
(Additions/amendments welcome)
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A new approach for faculty and school web content
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- Each faculty and each school will have an area (or subsection or space) rather than a distinct site.
- Faculties and schools that are combined, or wish to be combined on the web, will have a blended area. See attachment for how these could be presented in a flattened IA. Combined areas could be provided for: Law, Engineering and CS, Architecture and Design, and Faculty of Education/School of Education: Te Kura Māori (to be discussed).
- The faculty areas and school areas will be located in About us > Faculties and schools.
- The faculty areas and school areas will be different from each otherone another: they won't have duplicate content, and each of the two types of area will be tightly focused on a clear purpose and identified target audiences. They will be much simpler than the current sites.
- Where content represents a standard university approach, it will be located in a common area of the mainsite, rather than duplicated across faculty areas or school areas. For example, generic information about student :
- Student wellbeing and support will be located in 'Current students'.
- Alumni will be located in a new 'engagement hub' that is being planned.
- Overseas exchanges will be located in 'Victoria Abroad'.
- Content that is of high interest to Victoria's audiences will be centrally located on the mainsite, rather than in faculty areas or school areas.
- Courses, subjects and programmes will be located in 'Study at Victoria' (now called 'Future students’). The structure, presentation and content will be improved.
- Diplomas, certificates and professional development courses will also be located in 'Study at Victoria'. Improving the content is out of scope for the current project.
- Research centres and institutes, research projects, research funding and research partnerships will be located in the 'Research' section.
- Information about the location of Victoria's campuses, where to find faculties and schools within campuses, and higher-level content about facilities will live in an improved version of the area that is currently called Our campuses.
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- The faculty areas and school areas will have a new design that is engaging and appealing, matches the homesite and works well on mobile devices.
Content
- Content will be improved as part of the redevelopment. It will be Much of the content currently on F&S sites will be improved as part of the project. Skilled web editors will ensure it is written for online readers , and focused on its target audiences, . Content will have more visual elements and be more engaging.
- Consideration is being given to the proposal that an 'account manager' web publishing model may be more effective for publishing faculty and school content than the current distributive model. Features ('profiles') will be rationalised: we'll plan more carefully what they cover, align them more closely with News, and include more multimedia. We'll ensure they're always recent.
- Guidance will be provided to faculties and schools on which channels to use for different types of communication with current students. It will draw on effective practices identified in the workshops, our own knowledge of Victoria's channels, and sessions held with current students. Guidance will be provided to faculties and schools on content managementto help them address some of the content management issues they mentioned at the workshops. It will include advice on content planning, and tools and techniques for keeping content current. It will draw on effective practices identified in the workshops, and expertise and prior experience within the project web team.
- Features ('profiles') will be rationalised: we'll plan more carefully what they cover, align them more closely with News and include more multimedia. We'll ensure they're always recent.Findings from user sessions with Victoria students relevant to which channels they prefer will be shared with faculties and schools.
The Faculty of Graduate Research will be addressed in the postgrad phase of WIP 2 (phase 3).
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