Current state of faculty and school sites
Staff said:
Tired design
- Tired, complex, unattractive and difficult to use.
Too much 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 Maintenances is time consuming so time-sensitive information is often out of date.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 is challenging
- Lack of time and resources (especially writerwriters) for web content. Too little time for many to become/stay proficient in Squiz.
Most staff can't maintain their profiles
- Difficult to maintain, so are often out of date. Very dated/tired look. Gives a poor impression of the University.
Too many 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.
Make analytics more widely available
- Needs to be more widely accessible and used, especially data on goal conversions.
Site search gives poor results
- Site search doesn't always give useful results. Results are often dominated by courses and not what really matters.
Research approach
- Workshops with representative staff members from all faculties and some schools, augmented by 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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Students said:
Why are they different?
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- With faculty and school 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.
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- As channels for information from Victoria, with all students also following relevant pages on Facebook.
Postgraduate students had greater awareness
- That faculty and school had separate sites, but still had a very narrow information need (staff profiles, administrative services, forms, etc).
Secondary school students didn't understand the roles
- Of faculties and of schools at all, let alone their web presence.
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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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- Are not busy, and the highest traffic areas are subjects, UG degrees, study information, and PG programmes. And much of this traffic comes from the subject and degree pages on Homesite.
School sites
- Are usually (but not always) less busy, and the highest traffic areas are staff profiles; research and (in some cases) resources for specific courses. And much of this traffic comes from the subject and degree pages on Homesite.
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- 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.
Option of single blended area
- 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.
Design
Modern design
- The faculty areas and school areas will have a new design that is engaging and works well on a mobile as well as larger screens (as we are presently doing with the subjects/topics and degrees.
Unified site
- They will be less distinct from each other as they are now which means users see the appearance of an single organisation.
Content
Information on core services on Homesite
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| Introduction | Strengths, unique features. Vibrant, exciting, makes an emotional connection. Like a walk down Cuba St? Include a video tour? Consider including a 1-minute video from HOS. |
| Our services | A fuller version of what is in the Home section/page. May be a series of visual 'promo' links. Could have a course widget to show courses taught by the school (or staff in the school). |
| Research capability | Profile of areas in which research is under taken and can be supported. Links to examples, staff profiles, etc |
| Location and facilities | Link to Our campuses on the homesite. 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 |
| Students | A small collection of features covering the university experience of recent students. Are these stories? Projects? |
| Alumni | Medium term plan is to move much/all alumni information to the new 'engagement hub' and link to it. However, a short-medium term solution might be required to retain it on the new school site. |
| Positions | Appointments and important positions outside the normal management chart (e.g. Academic Visitors' Programme, Fellows, Curator in Residence (School of Art History). |
| Partners | Accreditation, affiliations, professional bodies, industry associations and partnerships, sponsors, donors. |
| Forms | If any. Could be improved (to be online forms) and moved to Current Students in future |
| Publications | Links to core publications (e.g. School Prospectus, Faculty Handbook) Does this include research reports/publications (that are not by an individual (therefore in staff profiles) or a centre/institute/chair (therefore in Research hub) if they can't go to the library? |
Student information
Purpose: School-specific information for current students by coursework and research.
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- Each f&s has their own online space, with quality content (sometimes reused/resurfaced) tailored to meet the audience needs, well integrated with homesite.
- More focused on the audience needs, with a clearly defined and distinct purpose.
- Richer, more engaging and more recent content.
- Content much more integrated/aligned with Homesite (i.e. strong links to and even content surfaced from Homesite.
- Focus is on the audience context for showing content and building a relationship between existing content, not the duplication of it.
- Flexible approach - 'local' content that has no logical home on Homesite remains on school site.
- Aligned with Homesite approach for content increasingly being organised by task, topic or user group - not by organisational structure.
- Encourage people to think about F&S content (rather than F&S 'sites').
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Risks
| Risk | Description and consequence | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Consultation could be long and slow, with many objections | Based on recent experience with the subject groupings, the consultation process could be slow, maybe very slow. This consumes time and resources, as well as the possibility that it introduces changes in a disjointed/non-integrated way. | H | M | Start early, so timelines are not adversely impacted. Shield most of the team by using only the BA and PM, plus COMT management. Attempt to use 1-2-1's with senior people (e.g. PVCs), existing forums for others (faculty manager, school managers, faculty management teams, etc), and casual or relational/network conversations with those we know and work closely with. |
| 2 | True buy-in from faculties and schools is not gained prior to starting work | Despite obtaining approval and socialising the approach, f&s staff may understand or accept the approach. There are both many stakeholders and many layers (organisation hierarchy). This may lead to repeated rounds of negotiation (taking time and stressing relationships) and even lead to f&s doing their own thing (outside/around the website). | H | M | Ground our approach to communications/consultation in:
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| 3 | Approach takes a long time to implement | Improving and relocating the content on f&s sites is a big job. This may mean that some sites don't change for some time, continuing to have an old design and content. | M | M
| Planned and prioritised approach to the required work. Set and manage expectations carefully. Request more project content resource. |
| 4 | Loss of 'online identity' for faculties and schools | As content that is currently on f&s sites is merged or moved the new f&s sites will be more focused. This may lead to f&s staff feeling that their importance as organisational entities is diminished. | M | M | Use all three consultation approaches listed in risk 1 above. Demonstration versions, as covered in risk 2 above
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| 5 | Diminished sense of content ownership across faculties and schools | Same cause as with Risk 4 above. This may lead to a reduced sense of ownership of the content, resulting in to slower updating / information out of date. | M | M
| Gain true buy-in to the approach during the initial consultation (education) and while working with faculties and schools on the content changes. Develop strong web author/editor networks to ensure people remain connected. |
| 6 | Complexity around page ownership and page edit permissions | As more content currently on f&s sites is integrated into existing homesite pages page ownership could become unclear and authoring permissions may become more complex | M | M
| Plan content management with the Web BAU team. Train and communicate effectively. |
| 7 | The Faculty of Engineering may be resistant to moving away from using a wiki for web publishing | The Faculty of Engineering (and school) uses a wiki to author and display some of their website content and be resistant to having to move some of their activities to university-standard methods. This may lead to the Web Team having to support two models, one for only one faculty and one school | H | L-M
| COMT management to initiate this conversation with the faculty management, trying to find a good way forward. Separation of presentation layer from content management offers flexible options not previously available.
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