As we deploy a new website for a faculty (and the associated schools) in WIP II Phase 2 we will disestablish the old one.This means that any content on the old site must be handled prior to decommissioning, either covered by newly written content (probably either on the new faculty site or elsewhere on Homesite) or dropped/deleted (a legitimate option for some content). In the current delivery approach Phase 3 covers postgraduate information (all postgraduate degrees/programmes, the Faculty of Graduate Research's site and http://www.victoria.ac.nz/postgradlife/) and those short courses relevant to postgraduate students run by the Faculty of Graduate Research, and Phase 4 covers all (or less if we de-scope some) the sites for research centres, institutes and chairs. Named student information sites are left for Phase 5.
As the project team's understanding of faculty and schools (current sites and the proposed future sits) has grown we have realised that our proposed delivery approach can be improved. The main direction for improvement lies in pruning content areas off all the existing faculty and school sites in repeat "by domain" sweeps and school sites and , rewriting it for the homesite, Homesite prior to redeveloping the first new faculty site.
How much do we prune off all F&S sites before starting to build the first new faculty site?
As we deploy a new faculty (and associated school(s)) website developed in WIP II Phase 2 we will disestablish the old one.This means that anything on the old site that is must be handled prior to decommissioning, with the content either covered somewhere else (new faculty site, or elsewhere on home site, or even elsewhere on the web) or dropped (a legitimate option for some content). Future stages will cover postgraduate information (phase 3), research centres/institutes and chairs (phase 4) and student information sites (phase 5).
Our current plan in phase This pruning, at least in part, will cover content that would otherwise be in a future stage, but where doing it earlier seems to make more sense. Each sweep would reduce the size and complexity of all the faculty and school sites, so that eventually the only content left is that which will be covered on the new site or dropped altogether. The project team all believe that this revised approach is better, as does Nathan. However, this leaves some important questions that need answers before an approach decision can be made.
Why are we already planning to approach CSP "by domain" not "by faculty"?
The short answer is because we must. Just think about our subjects on the old school sites (even where on homesite the content is still mastered on school sites). Our new approach is based around topic pages, not subject pages. Wile most topics consist of subjects from the same school (e.g. the topic Film and theatre contains two subjects, Film and Theatre), others cross schools (e.g. the topic History and classics contains five subjects from two schools), and some even cross faculties (e.g. the topic Environment contains six subjects from two faculties). Add to this the confusion for students deciding on what to study if we "bounced" them between old subject pages and new topic pages depending on what subject they wanted to look at next. As we have already accepted that it makes sense to prune the CSP information off all faculty and school sites, the first "by domain" sweep the next question is . . . .
How much do we prune off all F&S sites before starting to build the first new faculty site?
Our current approach for Phase 2 is that CSP (and staff profile) content would be addressed "by domain" across all faculties, rather than as we address all the content on a specific faculty site (i.e." by faculty"). By implication, the remaining content on a faculty site would then be considered and either dropped/deleted or rewritten/carried forward. The big question is whether this "by topic" approach should be utilised further, extending this gradual whittling down/thinning/pruning of the faculty sites prior to the new replacement faculty site being developed?The two areas in contention are information for postgraduate students and research information. Should these be tackled "by domain" or "by faculty"?
There are currently three or four areas (in common to all/most faculties, significant volume of content (i.e. number of pages), with clear target areas on Homesite) in contention for also being addressed "by domain" before we start on building the first new faculty site:
- Postgraduate: Programmes (subjects will be done in Phase 2), information, forms, etc on faculty and schools sites, but excluding FGR's faculty site and postgraduatelife be left
- Research
- Information to support current students
In documenting the opinions of the various stakeholders:
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