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 Maintenances is time consuming so time-sensitive information is often out of date.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- Staff profiles: Difficult to maintain, so often out of date.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. Gives a poor impression of the University.
- Channels: Too many channels with the same information as 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.
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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.
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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- 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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- Provide a profile of the faculty demonstrating its strengths and relevance to the key audience groups (see table below)
- Present the services offered by the faculty, 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 appropriate Homesite content as appropriate in a school settingfaculty context.
- Surface appropriate school content as appropriate in a faculty context (e.g. an aggregation of some content from composite schools (e.g. aggregate news, events, staff, etc. from composite schools).
Audiences
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. |
| 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? |
Home
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Content
The content outline below represents a general example of what a faculty area might contain. While some content will be in all faculty areas (eg, Introduction, What we do), other content will only be needed by some faculties, and some faculties will require content not yet identified.
Home
| Introduction | Brief introduction block linking to main introduction in 'About us'. | |
Our services | Overview of services faculty offers (what is administered and managed 'Quicklinks' to schools. '). Quicklinks' to research centres, institutes and chairs.Do we (via widgets and filtered search results) also show what is taught and researched by the schools in the faculty? Could save user time searching, but would it be misleading?schools, research centres. | |
| Our people | People finder widget for academic and general staff. Could have option Option to expand search to cover all staff and research-focused PG students in the composite schools. | |
| Contact Us | Contact block, including Student and Academic Servicesdetails, especially for main services. | |
| News | 'News" could be utilised to inform people of a wider range of things than the current more narrow usage. For example telling people about Surfaced from Homesite based on faculty name tag. Widened definition of 'news' to include research projects (both opportunities and outcomes), student achievements etc. Surfacing from Homesite based on tagsachievements etc. Could include items created by the composite schools, especially if cross-school (and maybe engagement or alumni) focused?. | |
| Events | Introduction | Covering purpose/role.Seminars, conferences, careers events, lectures etc. Surfacing from Homesite based on tags Could include items created by the composite schools, especially if cross-school (and maybe engagement or alumni) focused? |
Content
The content outline below represents a general example of what a school area might contain. While some content will be in all school areas (eg, Introduction, What we do), other content won't be required by all schools - and some schools may have additional content needs.
About Us
on tags. Could include items created by the composite schools, especially if cross-school (and maybe engagement or alumni) focused? |
About
| Introduction | Purpose/role, strategic objectives, strengths and , features. Maybe organisation chart. |
| Location and facilities | Link to Our campuses. Retain info information about facilities, building/floor access, health and safety for now, and similar ( although potentially this should be relocated 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 |
| 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 publications that support students (e.g. School Prospectus, Faculty Handbook) |
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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Questions
- Should we consider a model where more of the action/glamour is at a faculty level (by including the aggregation of news and events from units within a faculty) and leave schools to handle supporting students? Why do we want a lite faculty site and have many more active school sites?
- Where do we show research centres that are attached to faculty (not school) level?
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- Provide a profile of the school and its services, demonstrating its strengths and relevance to the t the key audience groups (see table below).
- Provide a base for school-specific study and research informationfor current students. (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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