UG degrees and topics
WIPII is currently developing new pages for (UG) degrees and the associated topics (i.e. groups of related or similar subjects). Early discussions indicate that International wish to benefit from these as soon as they can. There are three options on when this could start:
- First degree and matching topic pages are ready: This would be the earliest possible date, but comes with a major down-side in that the student type selector/switcher won't be ready. As the selector drives the content that differs between International and Domestic student audience these pages will mislead prospective International students. The project team recommend against this option.
- Selector is ready: As soon as this functionality is ready International could migrate to whatever degrees and topic pages are ready, leaving the rest as they are presently. Additional degrees and topics would become available on International as they go live for domestic students, iteratively/incrementally. This brings benefits earlier, reduces risks of doing all at once but has some additional (albeit distributed) work. Users will see different content and designs for different degrees and topics. Would probably involve changing the navigation to the Areas of Study currently live on Future Students, with each of the current International UG subjects treated in one of three ways:
- All subjects in topics that are live map to the topic page level (probably from the topic-level button 'Explore (topic name)' not at the subject level; or
- Subject not currently advertised by International are removed from the navigation, until the appropriate topic page goes live and 're-introduces' these subjects in the new context (and with the appropriate degree-level warning message; or
- All other subjects would map to the page they currently do and stay this way until replaced by the new topic.
- All UG degree and topics are ready: May not be much later than option 2 (depending on when the selector can be developed), would eliminate users seeing different content and designs, and saves on the 'redirecting' for each new topic and degree. The preferred option of the project team.
UG programmes and topics
Options 2 and 3 are probably both still relevant for the PG programmes, so taking the time to understand each now will be useful for then as well. The main difference will be that we plan to move to a 'PG programmes in which this subject can be studied' listing page for domestic/home site, much the same as International have now. I expect there to be an improved design, more information available for each programme (even on the listing page) and some functionality to reduce the number of options down based on the user's needs and background.
Most topics will be covered in the UG phase, except for those in which all subjects are PG.