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- The faculty areas and school areas will have a new design that is engaging and appealing, either utilising an appropriate presentation layer technology (e.g. we used Angular JS for Topics and DegrteesDegrees) or, if this doesn't pan out using responsive templates in Squiz (similar to Homesite).
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- Provide a profile of the school and its activities, 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 for current students (longer term, this may live in a student learning area of Homesite).
- Surface Homesite content as appropriate in a school setting.
Audiences
Audience | Information needs |
|---|---|
| Current students - both coursework and research | Study and research material and information that is distinct to the school/programme. |
Prospective students, including international and postgraduate students, and their influencers | Understand the strengths and features of the school. Why would I choose to study here? What would it be like being a student here? |
Prospective staff | Is this somewhere I'd like to work? What do they do? Who else works here? |
| Prospective research partners (industry and business, government (central, local), other universities) | Understand the strengths and features of the school. Why would I work with them? Who are their people? What are their areas of expertise? |
Home
| Introduction | Brief intro block, linking to Introduction page in About Us section |
| Our services | Overview of services school offers (what is taught (via a topics/subjects widget) and what is researched (content or a filtered search result?)), with rest on About Us section. |
| Our people | People finder widget for academic and general staff, as well as research-focused PG students |
| Contact us | Block with key contact details. |
| News | Research projects, student achievements etc. Surfacing from Homesite based on tags |
| Events | Seminars, conferences, careers events, lectures etc. Surfacing from Homesite based on tags |
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
| 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.Link to Homesite content when ever possible (eg: Subjects/topics; UG Degrees and PG programmes; Research projects; Centres, institutes and chairs). 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 students.
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(Note that longer term, study and research material and resources may live in a student learning area of the homesite.)
| Facilities | Details behind overview in About Us section above. Includes:
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| Resources | Study and research resources - eg: databases, software, online written resources. Example: School of Linguistics |
| Study groups | Student study groups. Is this also where we put research groups (even though it seems buried)? |
| Work experience and internships | (Amend nav label as relevant to the content) Will only be required by a few schools - eg, ECS |
Links
(A tentative list) | Areas of study (topics, degrees, postgrad programmes): Although this might need a smarter widget if we wanted to surface them in the school site, rather than link away. Centres, Institutes and Chairs: Research information including Research projects (in Research expertise?) and Research reports (maybe cared for by the Library?) 'Current students' - eg: Student services and support / New students / Wellbeing / Clubs Social media sites (eg, Facebook) |
Questions
- Is Student Information better labelled Supporting students in study and research?
- Is Resources different or does it include Publications? Facilities? Forms?
- What do we do when facilities are not necessarily for teaching/students but either for research or available to industry (e.g. specialised equipment)?
- Where do we plan to put outputs from (historic) research funding?
- Publications and forms seem to fit as well in Student Information as in About Us. Are there a subset there and others on About Us? references?
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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 the faculty offers, both 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)
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. |
| 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? |
Home
| Introduction | Intro block - brief. Linking to main intro 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? |
| Our people | People finder widget for academic and general staff. Could have 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 Services. |
| News | Research projects, student achievements 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? |
| Events | 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
| Introduction | More official/prestigious (than school), 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 |
| 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 (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? |
Links
| (A tentative list) | Areas of study (topics, degrees, postgrad programmes) Research Centres, institutes and chairs (if located elsewhere) |
| Social media sites (eg, Facebook) |
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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- Sections/areas, not separate sites.
- Much smaller and simpler - audience focused, clearly defined purpose.
- 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 of risk 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 |
Faculty and school staff may not support the approach; or may support it on face value, but not truly understand how it works. And this despite us having a mandate and consulted widely. Part of the reason for this is the number of stakeholders and the levels in the organisation (i.e. our consultation is often with faculty (and sometimes school) management, whether academic or general/administrative.
Approval for the approach may be obtained, but when work starts there could be repeated rounds of negotiation required, putting stress on relationships and timeframes.
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 |
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 much smaller/leaner/lighter. This may lead to f&s staff feeling that their importance as organisational entities is diminished. | M | M |
Casual consultation sessions (as for risk 1). Start these sooner: now even.
Present the example faculty and school area mockup (in test environment). The example mockups show that the areas have:
- a prominent outline of the faculty or school's purpose and role
- prominent links from their area to associated content in other parts of the site
- homesite content surfaced on their page(s) (eg, via a widget/bounded search or similar).
Much of the content that is currently on faculty and school sites will be merged with similar content on the homesite, or moved to a central location on the homesite.
Faculty and school staff may have a diminished sense of ownership of content that is no longer on distinct faculty and school sites or areas.
M
Faculty and school staff may not update the centralised content.
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.
- Page ownership could become unclear - who will be responsible for updating a page?
- Authoring permissions may become complex - should every person with content relevant to their faculty or school be able to edit the page? Or would it fall to the web team?
M
No-one may update a page, or there may be ongoing small edits.
Content ownership of important, centralised pages could fall to the web team
Topic and programme pages are highly important for undergrad recruitment. The topic page is a media-rich marketing page; and the undergrad degree page presents complex information in a way that makes sense to school students. To avoid these pages becoming ineffective over time, they will need to be maintained by people who fully understand the strategy behind them and have specialist web content and copy writing skills.
The web team are under resourced to do this work.
M
This could put stress on the web team. However, the team will gain an extra web writer at the end of 2015. And topic and programme pages are unlikely to need frequent review.
The Faculty of Engineering (and school) uses a wiki to author and display some of their website content.
- News, events and staff profiles are approached in this way.
- There is also a lot of 'current student'-facing information (eg, study resources) in the wiki.
The faculty may feel be resistant to having to move some of their activities to university-standard methods.
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Faculty and Marketing managers meet to clarify the best approach to be taken.
The features of the new university approach need to be communicated (ie, it's now better).
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Upgrade of Squiz: The timing of this might affect how and when we do certain work. When will admins be trained in the new approach? Will this be on top of helping with the new pages?
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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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