...
- Courses and programmes are probably the most significant.
- All students understood and referred to 'papers' - but saw 'courses' in the way that we'd perhaps see a programme. This meant, for example, that they'd use the online 'Course finder' when they were seeking information about a degree - and could might view the results (lists of courses) without understanding that they referred to were individual papers.
- Students didn't understand that a 'programme' is a 'degree'. When asked , they were vague about what a programme might be, they were vague (eg: "Collection of things?" "Maybe a form of course that isn't a course?").
- Students tended to work out 'undergraduate' and 'postgraduate' - especially when seen together, as in the Course finder.
- They thought they knew what 'major' meant - kind of. They'd heard the word, anyway.
- Terms like 'Honors' and 'Masters' were also "vaguely familiar" - but they didn't know what they meant.
- Other comments: "What is internal assessment?" "How do trimesters work?"
- They wanted words like 'co-requisites' and 'restrictions' to be explained.
- No student used the word 'accommodation' - instead, they used words like housing, dorms and houses.
...
- "Assumes prior knowledge."
- "Would need to go elsewhere to look that up, then come back."
Charles from International pointed out that we have 'international programmes' (in Victoria Abroad). And a paper in the US is an assignment that you hand in.
What are the implications?
Terminology was a significant barrier to for the secondary school students when trying to find out about study options at Victoria. We believe that improving the user-friendliness of our web content will result in an increase in undergraduate enrolments: anecdotal evidence suggests that 'window shoppers' are likely to look at several university websites, then progress their interest with the one that is easiest to understand.
...
- Nigel has been asked to request a university-wide change to replace the word 'course' with 'paper' (over time). He has initiated this.
- On 'first contact' pages for secondary students, such as topic pages and undergrad degree pages, we'll use do the following:
Explain a term the first time it occurs on
a page that the audiences above may visit – eg: the page. Examples:
You’ll need to enrol in six courses. (A ‘course’ is a ‘paper’ at Victoria.)
You must get 360 points from the courses (‘papers’) you study.
(We’ll work it out properly when we’re actually doing it.)The Bachelor of Architectural Studies (BAS) is a three-year undergraduate (‘first’) degree.
When the term can't be explained (eg, because it's in a heading, form label or similar), we'll use words that don't have terminology or replace the term with a word the user would understand. Example:
Replace 'Course options' with 'What you might study'
- Glossarise the term the first time it occurs on
a page that the audiences above may visit - the page – eg: You’ll need to enrol in
six - six courses [print]
or - or You’ll need to enrol in
six - six courses [web] (rollover).
- Link to the glossary page on the homesite (although this isn't really a solution). Note that this page needs to be made user friendly.
Approach needs to be discussed/communicated with F&S.
Approach needs to be documented in style guide.
Document meta
This approach should be documented in the Web Team's Style Guide, and socialised with faculties and schools as we rewrite their content.