Page Comparison

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Education, Psych, Design, Law, Physics, Philosophy, Biomedical Science, Marketing, Music. 

Acknowledge the lack of a voice from VBSEngineering and Law.

Most have studied, or are studying, cross-faculty. 

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Key points

• Use the Vic site (and F&S) for a very limited range of tasks: info on courses, staff profiles (largely for room numbers) and shortcuts to other tools.

• Use of F&S sites by undergrads - only for staff profiles. They aren't looking at the homepages.
• Lack of trust in the content - perception by three students that web content may be inaccurate or out of date.
• 'Current students' section of site - not used by current students? (Ref. analytics report below)
• F&S pages dominating and muddling search results. 
• Can't understand why information is spread between a 'main' site and F&S sites. Wish it was all in one place.

• News: Even the most engaged students are not interested the news F&Ss produce. They do like to hear big uni news though.

• Course finder: Students Victoria's website(s) weren't seen by the students as a place to go to for information, news or updates. They reported that they primarily use the site(s) for three specific tasks: find a person, get course info or access a shortcut to a tool.
• The students were unfamiliar with the 'Current students' section of the homesite, although web stats indicate that information related to dates, grades and timetables is accessed there.
• The students identified email and BlackBoard as their preferred channels for information from Victoria, with all students also following relevant pages on Facebook.
• Several students commented that they get too many emails: sign-up options should be more granular.
• The students didn't have a concept of F&S sites being separate ‘sites’ - although the one PG student involved did understand this.
• When looking for information about a staff member, students invariably used search and therefore missed the home page of a F&S site.
• Search results were sometimes swamped with results from F&S sites, which could be confusing.
• Three students noted that they didn't trust the web content because it might be inaccurate or out of date.

• Course finder: students in both streams of testing said they need more detail about a course - a stronger description of what it is about. Lack The lack of content has detail has a very high impact on studentsthem.

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Expectations

What were their expectations prior to coming to uni? 

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"I thought I was going to be a little fish in a big pond."

What was the reality?

Study

• Three students said they'd struggled with their study in the first year - the work was too hard. Two got support from Student Learning and one got support from the Faculty (including the associate Dean). 
• One other student also said she'd got a lot of support from Student Learning: "I didn't know then that there would be so much help available. I didn't know there were tutorials, I thought it would just be lectures. So it was actually way nicer." 
• One of the students that struggled commented that the different academic focus was good: "In NCEA, they tell you want to think. I got good at copying and pasting and memorising. At university, they reward you for original thought."
  
  

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• Students generally commented that they get too many emails. "Email bombardment." Sign-up options should be more granular. They want to get information about only what is of interest to them.
• All students use Facebook and get uni information that way. Two commented that they try to not be on Facebook a lot. "I don't want to be one of those people on their phones all the time." Students were often a little unsure about which Vic Facebook pages they follow. A number of them mentioned VUWSA, Vic in general, Overheard@Vic and pages distinct to their area of studycourses.
• Three students said they use the screens only for finding out the time. 
  
  

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1. Shortcuts in header menu (eg, MyVic, Library, BB)
2. Finding information on courses
3. Searching for lecturers staff to find their room number (also useful is the pic of them them (if it's up to date) - so they can tell who's who - and one student noted that the lecturer's research strengths are important when choosing a PG supervisor). 

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One student said he uses 'Current students' to access key dates. (Commented that there were too many clicks to get there.)

Below: Analytics report, top pages in 'Current students', March 2015

Note that 'Current students' opens by default on Vic computers (eg, in Library) which may account for the high bounce rate.

Below: Analytics report, top pages in 'Current students', June 20152015 

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• Profiles from past students: "I like to see where people have been taken and what happens to them after graduation". 
• Overview of where you're heading and what skills you'll have at the end. (Careers and job info. Note tho that two students mentioned CareerHub, which they were familiar with and had used.)
• Information on postgrad requirements (for PG student). 

Faculty and school sites

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One very web-savvy student (year 2) said she hadn't been aware of separate F&S sites. (She recognised some F&S pages while looking at info related to planning her study, but had never realised they were their own sites with their own home page.)

Most had never looked at the F&S site homepages: they found staff profiles via search.

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1. Room number
2. Pic of the person (if current) - "so you can see who's who"
3. Selecting supervisor for PG.

Bio One student noted that a bio written in the first person is appealing.

Course planning process

From three students. :

1. Look at core courses. Look at options. Use course finder. If not confident about the information or there's not enough information, may email someone. 
2. Write them down on paper. May put into Word or Excel.
3. Then check timetables. One student uses MyVictoria for scheduling. "The lecture timetable is not good enough. It's not something you'd want to print out and stick on your wall. I make my own in excel and colour code it." Would love to be able to do this online. 

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Talked a lot about the lack of information on what is required / the process to follow. "When you start putting it together in the last few months, that's when you realise how much you don't know." 

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Searching

We watched students use search: both in-site and Google search.

• They had no problems with Google, usually checking the first or first few results.
• For in-site searching, we saw them look for something general (eg. "postgrad") and something specific (XXX courses). When they made general searches, they got lots of results from across the homesite (usually at the top) and a number of Faculty and School sites. Usually they paused at the top result but then saw the F&S results below and felt they had to read them. This really slowed them down, especially when their faculty or school wasn't represented - they'd read the list more than once to be sure they weren't missing a 'more direct' result, before selecting the top answer. 

One student who got a result with shaded 'recommended links' ignored those results. When asked what she thought those results might be, she couldn't say - but did ignore them (as you might ignore sponsored results on Google).