Page Comparison

Document status: Under construction

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 Maintenances is time consuming so time-sensitive information is often out of date.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Staff profiles: Difficult to maintain, so often out of date.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 Gives a poor impression 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.

Workshops with faculty and school staffrepresentative staff members from all faculties and some schools, 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.

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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."
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 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.
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.

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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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 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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Provide a profile of the faculty demonstrating its strengths and relevance to the key audience groups (see table below)
Present the value add functions services offered by the faculty offers, both including those on behalf of its composite schools and in activities that cross school boundaries. This includes responsibilities, structure (i.e. schools) and affiliations.
Surface Homesite content as appropriate in a school setting.
Surface school content as appropriate (e.g. an aggregation of some content from composite schools (e.g. news, events, staff)

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Provide a profile of the school and its activitiesservices, demonstrating its strengths and relevance to the key audience groups (see table below).
Provide a base for school-specific study and research material and information research informationfor current students. (longer term, this may live in a Note that over the medium term much of this could be moved to a student learning area of Homesite).
Surface Homesite content as appropriate in a school setting.

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