Content strategy: Undergraduate degree information
- Anne Nelson (Unlicensed)
Date: 7 August 2015
Background
What?
Information about undergraduate degrees is currently located in Study at Victoria > Programmes and courses > Undergraduates > Individual degree listings.
- The ‘Undergraduate degree information’ piece of WIP2 work proposes to research user needs (completed), then review and improve the content on each degree page. Some technical improvements are included in the overall solution.
- This piece of work does not include postgrad 'degree' information, which should be reviewed when postgrad needs are considered in Phase 3 of WIP2.
Interrelationships
- This piece of work must be carried out in consultation with the BAU team - and particularly, with reference to IA decisions relevant to the area.
- Wider conversations have been started to address the difficulties that secondary students have with our terminology: decisions out of that will be highly relevant to this piece of work.
- This work has WIP2 interrelationships with Topics and Course information.
When?
Work on courses, subjects (topics) and programmes is the first priority of the WIP2 team and is underway now.
Where?
Information about undergraduate degrees is currently located in 'Study at Victoria' (called ‘Future students’ in the top menu) > Programmes and courses > Undergraduates > Individual degree listings.
A project that is underway to improve the site information architecture (IA) will define the future location of undergraduate degree pages (with input from the WIP2 team).
Note the relationship of undergraduate degree pages to topic pages, as set out in the diagram in Appendix 1.
Why?
While the existing information on undergraduate degrees is good, evidence suggests that there are some pain points for prospective students that need to be addressed.
User testing: secondary students
The WIP2 project team held sessions with secondary students in July 2015. A key finding was that they have a strong interest in information about ‘how a degree works’ and course options for their area of interest - but find ‘university concepts’ and ‘university terminology’ very difficult.
- The students were stumped by the information about putting a degree together (points, semesters) and courses (course codes, course options) that is currently on subject and programme pages.
- While the Victoria website has related pages that provide information about how a degree works, such as ‘Planning your degree and courses’ and ‘How degrees are structured’, not all students easily found this information. The students that did find this information (and ‘Exploring career options’) tended to scan but not read the pages, which have valuable content but are wordy. (Improving these pages is out of scope for WIP2.)
User testing: current students
The project team also held sessions with current Victoria students.
When asked to recall their enrolment experience, students who had got course planning help from Victoria had found the process - and their first year - much smoother than students who hadn’t.
Student T: "I probably should have gone to an enrolment person, but being older I thought that I could just do it.” “The first semester was a nightmare." Was overwhelmed by the difficulty of the subjects he had picked and the workload.
Anecdotal evidence
The project team discussed programme information for school leavers with student liaison officers on several occasions during July/August 2015.
- The student liaison officers noted that they get lots of enquiries from secondary students who can't find programme information on the Victoria website - or find the information but can't understand it.
- They also mentioned that students who plan their programmes without the direct assistance of someone from Victoria are likely to have difficulty in their first year as a result of the choices they’ve made (eg, with the workload or complexity of subjects).
The student liaison officers saw the website as supporting rather than replacing their interactions with secondary students. They were clear that their ideal process is for all prospective students to contact them for help with course planning before enrolling.
A faculty representative at a programme information session noted that as well as providing specific planning advice, the faculty are sometimes able to ‘bend the rules’ to help make programme options suit an individual student’s needs - something that only personal contact can provide.
How?
The content strategy and plan below describes the content approach for individual undergraduate degree pages.
Content strategy: Undergraduate degree pages
Purpose
- Undergraduate degree pages are the primary online source of information about each of Victoria’s undergraduate ‘programmes’. They support the work of student advisors by providing prospective undergrad students with understandable information about relevant programmes, enabling the prospective student to select the degree that is most suited to them.
- In combination with topic pages, undergraduate degree pages aim to increase new enrolments.
Alignment with strategic priorities
Undergraduate degree pages will help Victoria:
- Increase the total number of enrolments; including enrolments by Māori and Pasifika students; and enrolments by international students.
Outcomes / Calls to action
- Contact Victoria for assistance with course planning.
- Come to an open day or information evening.
- Apply/enrol in the degree independently. (While we acknowledge that a significant number of students will want to follow this path, outcome 1 is the preferred action.)
Target audiences
Primary
Prospective undergraduate students:
- Secondary students (domestic) - from Wellington and other regions, and including Māori and Pasifika students
- International students.
Secondary
- Secondary students’ influencers - particularly parents, teachers and careers advisors.
About postgraduate students
Prospective postgrad students have very different information needs from prospective undergraduate students. Therefore, postgrad programme information will be addressed when we investigate postgrad students’ needs later in the WIP2 project.
Content plan
Main content
The sessions with secondary students showed a very clear trend in terms of their degree information needs:
- How it works - eg, how different subject interests could work together as a major.
- Outline of the degree - what courses you’d do.
- Prerequisites. Entry requirements.
- Scholarships and costs.
Also:
- What pre-work could you do?
- How to enrol - the process, deadlines.
Content outline
As far as possible, undergrad degree pages should contain the following content:
Content | Description | Answers the question: |
‘Talk to us’ |
| How can I get help or advice to work this out? |
Intro (description metadata field) | Overview. Short and snappy. No more than 160 characters. | Why would I enrol in this degree? |
About the degree | Informational. May include video.
Also consider including:
| What are the interesting features of this degree? What do I need to note? |
Degree requirements | Duration Courses (core, mandatory, electives). Needs to show the degree over its duration (not just the first year). Transferring students: contact us for course planning advice. Degree examples | What would I study? What are the course options? How would I put it together? |
Degree options | Majors, minors, conjoint, double. May flow on from info above. Link to ‘Planning your degree’ and other related pages in the section. | What are the options for putting my degree together? |
Entry requirements |
Try to also include:
Links
| What are the entry requirements? |
Further study |
|
|
| Marketing content | The pages are primarily informational. However, they may include small amounts of marketing content, such as short student testimonials or snippets from future degree marketing campaigns. This is optional. | |
Call to action / big links | Talk to us (see contact block above) - includes come to an open day or info evening Apply/enrol |
|
Secondary links | Scholarships Fees Explore areas of study and related careers (link to Topics)
|
|
Content approach
- Informational - not a marketing page.
- Tightly focused on user needs. Clear, understandable.
Terminology
- Plain language. Avoid ‘university speak’.
- Where university terms must be used, explain the term in the text and via a ‘glossary’ rollover. (The page has a function in helping introduce terms they will need to know.)
- Use ‘degree’ instead of ‘programme’.
- Reverse the trend to refer to courses by course code only. Instead, use course titles first, with course codes in brackets afterwards (if they are necessary at all).
- Explain anomalies - such as identifying two study periods that are named ‘Trimester 1’ and ‘Trimester 2’.
Style
- Text, formatted for online readers.
- Use of flowcharts and other graphics wherever possible.
Tone
- Plain language
- Semi-formal
- Concise.
Appendix 1: User journey
Undergraduate degree pages provide information for prospective students who have explored a topic (or a number of topics) and now want information about the degree.
Pathways from the degree page:
- Contact Victoria for help with course planning (or to get more information).
- Come to an open day or information evening.
- Apply/enrol independently.
- Look at postgrad options.
- Look at other UG degree pages.
- ‘Reverse link’ to Topics.
‘Reverse’ links will be provided between related pages - eg, from an undergraduate degree page to Topics.