Document status: Under construction
Current state of faculty and school sites
Staff said:
- Design: Tired, complex, unattractive and difficult to use.
- Content: Too much on most pages and too many layers of page. Maintenances is time consuming so time-sensitive information is often out of date. Quality suffers. (e.g. spelling mistakes, links that don't go anywhere).
- Content Management: Lack of time and resources (especially writer) for web content. Too little time for many to become/stay proficient in Squiz.
- Staff profiles: Difficult to maintain, so often out of date. Very dated/tired look. Poor representation of the University.
- Channels: Too many channels with the same information as (anywhere on) the web (and as each other). Students still miss information despite repeat listings. Would like social media listed more prominently.
- Analytics: Needs to be more widely accessible and used, especially data on goal conversions.
- Search: Site search doesn't give useful results. Maybe make the point that this isn't about the search tool per se but how we manage information.
Note: Document research methodology and have handy, even if not in presentation.
Analytics said:
- Main uses of faculty sites: Who
Research approach
- Workshops with faculty and school staff, augmented by looking over the existing sites and one-to-one conversations with senior general and academic staff.
- Views above represent those present and are not necessarily true or held by all staff.
- As such, this information is input to our decision making, not necessarily what we propose to do.
Analytics said:
- Main uses of faculty sites: Who to contact; Staff profiles; Subjects and programmes (both undergraduate and postgraduate); Administrative information for current students; and Centres, institutes and chairs.
- Main uses of school sites: Who to contact; Staff profiles; Subjects and programmes (both undergraduate and postgraduate); Scholarships and awards and exchanges; News and Events; Student profiles (e.g. research students); and Centres, institutes and chairs.
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- Why are they different?: Future and current undergraduate students didn't understand that faculty and school sites existed as separate sites "This should all be one thing – school, faculty and Victoria. We are one university and there is no reason why it can’t all be together." Need to be careful we don't suggest this is doing away with anything, Faculties and Schools still have their web pages.Very low engagement:
- Very low engagement: With f&s sites only used for a few things (to find a person, get course info, access a shortcut to a tool (via the header menu)).
- Use site search to find staff profiles: This avoids having to know in what school to look for somebody, but has the unintended consequence of missing content placed on f&s homepages home pages because the administrators believe people will be interested in it.
- Prefer email and Blackboard: As channels for information from Victoria, with all students also following relevant pages on Facebook. Which suggests a strong skew towards audiences other than current students for the web channel
- Postgraduate students: Greater awareness of separate faculty and school sites, but still had a very narrow information need (staff profiles, administrative services, forms, etc).
- Secondary school students: Students didn't understand the roles of faculties and of schools at all.
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Research approach
- User research interviews were held with six senior students from local secondary schools and with six current students in various years of study.
- Views above represent those present and are not necessarily true or held by all staff.
- As such, this information is input to our decision making, not necessarily what we propose to do.
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Future state of the Victoria University website
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- Each faculty and each school will continue to have it's own area (or subsection or space). They will be less distinct from each other as they are now which means users see the appearance of an single organisation. Further, upgrades and maintenance become easier, while still providing each f&s with it's own online space.
- Faculties with only one school might prefer to have a single blended area and downplay the difference between the faculty and the school. Faculties where this might be suitable include Law, Engineering, and Education.
- The faculty areas and school areas must be different from one another: Each has a clear purpose and identified target audiences, so the content should be different. They will be much simpler to use and maintain than currently.
Content
- Content currently on these sites that follows a standard university approach (i.e. isn't unique or truly faculty-specific) will be located in the appropriate area of Homesite (e.g. student well-being and support will be located in 'Current students'). The driving reason for this is a desire to make orient our website around the needs of our users, not our organisational structure.
- Content that is best viewed as core to the university will be centrally located on Homesite (but can be surfaced on faculty and school sites as and when required) (e.g. the courses we offer, the subjects we teach, scholarships available)
- Content that is best located in one place to meet a user need can still be maintained by the appropriate people (e.g. Research centres, institutes and chairs could be located in the Research hub, surface on school sites, and be maintained by the same web administrators as now).
- Some types of content will be 'authored' centrally, then pulled through to faculty areas and school areas (and other relevant locations) via keyword tagging and/or search widgets (e.g. faculty and school news and events; staff profiles, etc).
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Audience | Information needs |
|---|---|
| Current students - both coursework and research | Find out about Student and Academic Services - what they can help with, how to contact them. Do we know from our work to date that prospective students aren't going here or are we deducing that from work done in other areas? The faculties will continue to believe in their sites as a recruitment tool, it will take work to wean them away from this. Just playing Devil's Advocate. They could argue we'll make it a self fulfilling prophecy i.e. no longer a recruitment tool. The content below e.g. Home clearly aims at different audiences than prospectives whereas if you go to, say, FHSS at the moment, Hagen is proclaiming the benefits of study there. We're talking about a fundamental shift in thinking so we need to couch it just right and have answers to the difficult recruitment issues. The FM's will be under great pressure to meet the numbers now given our strategic plan objectives. Prospectives are covered under the school sites which are currently buried under the rubble of the Faculty informationcan help with, how to contact them. |
| Industry/external stakeholders | Building channels for research and funding We heard this but how true is it? |
Prospective staff | Understand the strengths and features of the faculty. Is this somewhere I'd like to work? Who else works here? |
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| Introduction | Covering purpose/role., strategic objectives, strengths and features. Maybe organisation chart. |
| Location and facilities | Link to Our campuses. Retain info about facilities, building/floor access, health and safety, and similar (although potentially this should be located in 'Current students'), but maybe have an overview here and the detail in the Student Information section. |
| Research capability | Profile of areas in which research is under taken and can be supported. Links to examples, staff profiles, etc |
| Mission, vision and values | If required Really? |
| Committees and boards | If required. Complex information needs to be simplified or 'flattened' out (i.e. not nested too deeply). |
| Partners | Accreditation, affiliations, professional bodies, industry associations and partnerships, sponsors, donors. If relevant at faculty level (rather than school level) |
Dean's list | Dean's list, Dean's award. |
| Forms | As on faculty sites now (where there are large number) Could be improved (to be online forms) and moved to Current Students in future |
| Publications | Links to core publications that support students (e.g. School Prospectus, Faculty Handbook)Should we try to find a better word, as publications usually refers to the research outputs type? core published University information? |
Links
| (A tentative list) | Areas of study (topics, degrees, postgrad programmes) Research Centres, institutes and chairs (if located elsewhere) |
| Social media sites (eg, Facebook) |
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