WIP II Decision log

This is a working document that will be updated regularly.  If you add a decision point, please note your name in the table below.
ID

Project Phase

Decision required & justification

 

Actions required

(use task list)

Priority

High/Medium/Low

TimeframeComments/UpdateRaised byDate enteredLast updated

Status

Open/Closed

1Phase 2

Agreement on whether HELT should be included in the subject taxonomy.

Needed to finalise the education grouping, and to plan engagement with CAD. Also see What do we do with HELT?

Medium

 Reviewed with Nigel 26.08 and agreed to go with Option 2 - do nothing.Sam Motion (Unlicensed)26.08.1526.08.15

Closed

2Phase 2

Who will own the content for the topic pages?

 

High 

Already agreed with Nigel in discussion, to be noted on the decision log and discussed with WIPII team for official.

Nigel confirms Topic ownership in Marketing. Consideration around approach for writing, updating and signing off content needed.

Discussion with Tash documented in confluence and shared with Nigel. Chrissi will now share with Nathan for consideration.

Anne Nelson (Unlicensed)26.08.1515.10.15Closed
3Phase 2

Will the academic terms be challenged as part of the WIPII project?


Includes programme/degree/qualification; course/paper; and topic/subject/specialisation.

  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to follow up with Nigel on who are the key owners for each of the academic terms and agree next steps 
  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to raise academic terms at September PMO meeting 
  • WIP team to use current approved academic terms in all documentation and wireframes until approved otherwise 
  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to raise academic terms at web team story time as there is still no clear view on this for Madeleine to raise with Alison Kirkman 
High 

Discussed with Nigel and agreed needs to go to PMO for review.

08.10.15 - Raised with Madeleine at PMO. Pushed back to team story time and a suggestion was put to Madeleine to review by Alison Kirkman on 07.10.15.

22.10.15 - Madeleine has contacted Alison Kirkman, and chased. Still awaiting a response

26/11/15: Jane and Paul met with Martin B and agreed a way forward, as reflected in the modified notes below.

1.    Degree – when referring to an undergraduate degree (doesn’t appear to be a calendar definition).

We will also use this term loosely for the two diplomas and two certificates that are in scope for WIPII, even though they are not technically degrees.

2.    Programme – for a postgraduate degree (Masters) or other qualification (Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma, Postgraduate Diploma).  Calendar definition: A coherent set of related courses that may form a qualification, a set of qualifications or a major or specialisation. 

Note that our planned use of 'postgraduate' is accurate in the sense that these qualifications come after a first degree but not all are higher in the way that a master degree is.

3.    Course – Calendar definition: an individual unit of study towards a qualification, identified by a course code and title and carrying a specified points value 

We will only use the word 'paper' if necessary and then only as part of the tool tip definition of 'course'.

 

Anne Nelson (Unlicensed)26.08.1526.11.15Closed
4All

How will the web publishing model be agreed and communicated?

Proposal for F&S approach agreed first?

What is the consultation/sign off process?

High 

Discussed with Nigel 28th August.

26/11/15: Management discussions around this decision will pick up this issue, removing it from the WIP scope. These discussions will happen in parallel with the WIPII work. While there is a relationship with the proposed f&s approach we will attempt to prevent this becoming a dependency (in either direction).

GEN-998 - Getting issue details... STATUS

/wiki/spaces/TRAIN/pages/25526487

/wiki/spaces/TRAIN/pages/25526485

Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed)26.08.1526.11.15Closed
5All

We need to understand the programme information needs of PG students reasonably soon. Ideally, we would interview PG students about all WIP-related needs, but this takes time and might not be a priority at this stage. An alternative is that we use what we already know and can learn from contacts (Charlotte, Charles, PG students association, etc) for now and get these written up. If, at a later date after we have interviewed we discover additional needs we modify then.

Personally, I would cut the corner now. My estimates will be based on this but can be increased if need be.

Chrissi Dean what do you think?

Medium 

Confirmed to start with internal and review at later date whether to speak to PG students.

Also documented in JIRA ticket > WIP-573 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Paul Seiler (Unlicensed)27.08.1527.08.15Closed
6Phase 2

Should the topic and associated programme pages be providing future students enough information to enrol or to direct them to further support via advisers?

This will impact the level of information that is provided in the content - more detail required to get to enrol level.

Is there a university view around this?

  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to discuss with Nigel Riley whether topic and programme page level is sufficient and whether there is a university view around the user of student advisers  
  • Nigel Riley to set up a meeting with, Cath Powley, and Paul on the path from topics, programmes to enrolment  
Medium 

Aim to pick up with Nigel in 1-1 this Friday as will impact the strategy and content plan now.

28.08.15 - Nigel will pick with with Cathy (see action). For now the WIP team to assume path is to student advisers and not to add extra depth to the content.

Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed)27.08.1527.08.15Closed
7Phase 2Where will the high level topics list live on home site? Medium 

Emailed Nathan and David 28.08.

Now forwarded onto Tash Davey (Unlicensed) for comment 28.08

Decision: Will replace subjects page on future students > http://www.victoria.ac.nz/study/programmes-courses/subjects

Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed)28.08.1528.08.15Closed
8Phase 2

URL structure for WIPII needs to be agreed.

The main area of risk is in following the first (see below) guideline.

  • Always write for humans first.
    • And by extension allocate the best/ shorter urls to benefit the most customers. This would mean promoting topic pages ahead of faculties and schools (e.g. www.victoria.ac.nz/law to take you to the topic page not to the faculty.

Quite a number of our best short urls go to the organisational unit, not to our service offering. I (and I believe the whole team agree) propose we reverse this and map these as they become free (when we disestablish existing school/faculty sites, if not before) to the new topic pages.

This would be in keeping with the content strategies for topic pages and faculty/school sites. We will need you to help sell this message up and out wards.

Medium/High

 

(sprint 19)

draft urls for all topics and subjects are included in master taxonomy spreadsheet, maintained for all name and organisation changes. Reviewed by the core team it is only the suffix that needs deciding (i.e. if /study/ is owned by Squiz pages and WIP builds topics and subject elsewhere we have to use something different) and can be decided when required. Ideas would be /areas-of-study/ or /study-areas/ or the like. Nathan Irwin or Andrew Bredenkamp or Joe Lobotka (Unlicensed) what do you think?

Paul Seiler (Unlicensed)31.08.1531.08.15Closed
9Phase 2What is the minimum accepted deliverables for Topics, Subjects and Programmes for 2015 and more broadly the WIPII project.
  •  Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to follow up with Nigel Riley what needs to be delivered in 2015 for topics and programmes
  • Nigel to raise releases for topics and programmes with Madeleine  
  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to break down priorities for the programme page development following discussions with Paul and Joe 
Medium 

Release 1 (and potentially 2) has been discussed for the taxonomy and the search functionality. Further discussion around agreeing an approach for releasing topics and their associated programme pages to be agreed.

Feedback needed on expectations for releases in 2015.

Discussion also required around how to breakdown the programme page for releases, subject to design developments. What is the MVP. Priorities required as with the topics area (see item 12 on Topics and programmes delivery).

22.10.15 - Ongoing review for programmes as part of the second iteration and feedback from student testing.

Topics agreed.

Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed)31.08.1522.10.15Open
10Phase 2

Should there be a disclaimer on each topic and/or programme page?

  • Helps manage risk if someone feels disadvantaged because they acted on information that was incomplete (or inaccurate - or out of date).
  • The site has a very relevant disclaimer under Site info in the footer. If we feel that's adequate, let's consider whether it's visible enough (ie, not buried - should it be listed separately in the footer?)
  • It's also an option to disclaim by item - eg, The three-year BAS costs about $15,000 per year* (* This is an estimate only: contact us if you want to know exact costs.)

Content examples:

Topic page - A qualification from Victoria in Economics or Finance will open doors to jobs that are interesting and important – both in New Zealand and overseas. (What if they can't get a fabulous job - or any job?)

Programme page - There are no restrictions on entry into year 1. However, entry into year 2 is based on your academic performance in the first year. You’ll need to work hard and get good marks. (Actually, in year 2 some students can't get into their preferred specialisation, and are offered a different one. We could just say that here, but it isn't mentioned in our general pubs - and is a negative.)

Low 

Discussed that a separate disclaimer is unlikely to be developed, but could we make the current one stand out further?

Has been raised with Nathan, and will be reviewed by the core team.

Anne2015/09/0822.10.15Closed
11Phase 2

Should pre-degree programmes be in scope as part of CSP/WIPII?

Paul Seiler (Unlicensed) raised that there are 4 pre-degree programmes which currently sit on schools sites that are not currently officially in scope. If they were left out of scope they would have to remain on the school sites, which we have not planned for.

The structure of these pre-degrees currently appear to fit within the UG degree content plan (needs to be confirmed).

How these will fit into the current taxonomy will need to be assessed (first two should fir into a mapping, and possibly the third).

  1. Diploma in Māoritanga / Tohu Māoritanga (DipMāori / Tahu Māori) on Te Kawa a Māui - The School of Māori Studies
  2. Certificate in Deaf Studies (Teaching NZSL) (CertDeafStud (Teaching NZSL) on the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
  3. Certificate in Management Studies on the School of Management
  4. English Proficiency Programme (EPP) on the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
 Medium  

09.09.15 - Paul raised with Chrissi. Makes sense to include them, but lets just check that it fits with the content plan and isnt going to cause us pain in the taxonomy. See actions.

Anne provided feedback as follows 14.09.15:

Based solely on the content strategy and the agreed ‘Tabs’ for: About, Degree requirements, Entry requirements, Apply/enrol:

  • Dip in Maoritanga – Will be OK. Some content will move to the Topic page (eg, Careers, student profiles – if that content is current)
  • Cert in Deaf Studies – It’s a bit too brief, but will fit in the template. We could interview them and get a little more content.
  • Cert in Management Studies – It will fit in the template.
  • English Proficiency Programme – this one isn’t a good fit – there’s a lot of useful content, but it doesn’t follow the structure we’ve developed for UG degrees. It looks very out of date – if we work with them on a rewrite, we may be able to ease it into our format. However, if not, then a pragmatic approach would be to change the wording on one or two of the tabs (rather than make the content fit the design). It would be useful to confirm with Joe that the tab labels could be edited for unusual quals.

In summary – might be worth confirming with Joe that:

  • Functional areas to do with courses, rules etc for UGs can be hidden if necessary (he might just make a different template, based on the current, with content-only fields).
  • Tab labels can be changed on rare occasions where necessary.

Joe feedback 15.09.15:

Even though there will be a lot of flexibility on Programme pages (to accommodate differences between UG and PG programmes), I don't think it's (generally) a good move to bend templates around content that is out of date. Development overhead will be insignificant as we should be able to hide functional areas and change subpage labels in Squiz easily. However, it decreases UI/UX consistency and we will be still serving old, outdated content to our users - In my opinion, making it less consistent here is a contra-productive trade-off.

Paul Seiler (Unlicensed) I believe you had spoken to someone from the English proficiency area about this? Where have we got to in addition to Anne and Joe's feedback noted above? Thanks

PS" I believe we decide that these four are in scope and, once the content is better understood, decide which can be done using the template and which require a hand crafted page. But the scope decision is obvious (IMHO).

Agreed to write new content to fit the template for English Proficiency.

Decision: These 4 are in scope, and can be dealt with in the current template, bar English Proficiency, for which the content will be edited as required.

Paul  09.09.15

08.10.15

Closed 
12Phase 2

What are we doing with subjects metadata?

Do we need metadata for subjects in the first release?

How will this be resourced?

How will it be signed off?

 

  • Sam Motion (Unlicensed) to write missing metadata for subject before the end of sprint 19, and compile list of all for circulation.  
  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to circulate list of metadata intros to faculty managers requiring feedback by a set date.  
Medium  

08.09.15 - Paul raised the following:

Chrissi, we all had a chat after stand-up and have reached an agreed position (see bullets below). I am now requesting your permission for Sam to write the 30 outstanding metadata descriptions and check the existing one before she leaves for her holiday. You can determine the consultation/approval process (that I am happy to run next week). It will take her off other writing activity but is essential for the first release.

Our approach entails:

  • Metadata descriptions will be displayed (as fly outs) for all mega-areas and topics
  • Subjects will be hyperlinked name only, without displaying the metadata descriptions
  • Subject names link to Homesite subject pages wherever possible, falling back to programme pages or information on faculty and school sites where nothing better exists.

Decision: Metadata to be written and circulated to FM's

Paul 08.09.1508.10.15 Closed
13Phase 2At what level do we internationalise our content/structure?15/9: Charles has agreed that VI will have exactly the same taxonomy and topic pages as Future Students. Internationalisation of pages and content will be on the degree/programme level only.   Paul15.09.1515.09.15Closed
14All

Imagery sign off process

What is the process for signing off use of images within the WIP team?

 

  • Chrissi to document decision following brief discussion with Anne and make team aware of approach.
  • Following feedback from Marketing Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) has requested feedback from Laura (05.10.15) on the Marketing sign off process for images on the web  
Medium 

Decision updated:

Topic page writer and designer to identify image requirements.

If a current image is available - get sign off from Marketing.

If a new image is required - request via Image Services and make final selection with approval from Marketing.

If new imagery is required - Nigel can approve to commission Robert or Gerry to capture new images.

Anne18.09.1522.10.15Closed
15Phase 2Do we treat specialisations (i.e. sub-majors for UG degrees) within the subject content or as subjects? Medium 

Margaret Petty answered that for the BDI drawing attention in the content is sufficient.

Allan Sylvesteyr has requested that we list the two Inf Systems specialisations as though they were subjects, but take care in the content to make clear that all three are related, that specialisations are optional and that even the courses required for the specialisation should function as guidance.

Closed as we have answers for now. May be addressed on case by case basis.

Paul18/09/1508.10.15Closed
16Phase 2

Options for release 1 - topics taxonomy

  1. Release revised subject taxonomy to replace current full subject listing
  2. Release revised subject taxonomy, and provide option to also view the current full subject listing
  3. Release revised subject taxonomy to replace current full subject listing, and in a subsequent release (circa 1 sprint later) release the search functionality for subjects
  4. Release revised subject taxonomy to replace current full subject listing, and monitor analytics to decide whether in a subsequent release (circa 1 sprint later) to release the search functionality for subjects and/or a full subject list.
High 

Decision:

Discussed and agreed with Madeleine 21.09.15

Release revised subject taxonomy, and provide option to also view the current full subject listing

Chrissi21.09.1521.09.15Closed
17Phase 2Consultation on programme page for first iteration Medium 

Decision:

As agree for sprint 21, only the CSP reference group will see the programme wireframe.

Topic wireframes can continue to be shared for feedback with faculty managers.

Chrissi24.09.1505.10.15Closed
18Phase 2At what point do we freeze the topics and subject groupings? High 

Decision:

Madeleine was emailed 01.10.15 and it was raised at PMO on 06.10.15 that topic and subject groupings would now be frozen post release 1 so that the writing can continue with a reduced risk of rework, and BA resource can be addressing other areas of the project.

PS: I think that she has frozen it until the end of October, then we have a brief review and make any changes we need to.

Chrissi06.10.1506.10.15Closed
19Phase 2How do we meet the need to map from a topic page to PG programme information when we release our first UG degree - topic bundle? Medium 

Maybe we need to develop the "listing page" with Homesite programme pages together with the first topic, although the content will be pulled from school sites.

Agreed that a PG programme listing page will be developed:

  • Breakdown of PG pages into divs has mostly been done from VI.  Need to identify the rest
  • Do a bulk creation of pages
  • Need a full list of the programmes (from Paul Seiler (Unlicensed))
  • Metadata for the PG programmes needs writing – assumes there isn’t already some (Sam Motion (Unlicensed) will pick up in sprint 23)
  • Would be circa 2 full days of work - may need to add some contingency (couple of hours) for any formatting that requires fixing
  • Can be done and held for a later release

Paul noted that we could focus on the programmes needed for the earlier releases first.

 

Paul08.10.1522.10.15Open
20Phase 2How do schools/faculties list i. the subjects they teach, and ii. the degrees they offer when we have a mix of new and old pages? Medium 

Discussed at team meeting 15.10.15 - will need to be considered going forward. Would need to consider timing implications for release. Could we use a new landing page which directs to mix of new and old pages?

22.10.15 - reviewed at team meeting. Still requires consideration going forward.

Paul08.10.1515.10.15Open
21Phase 2How will the FHSS interviews be managed and when can contact commence?
  • Chrissi Dean (Unlicensed) to follow up with Jennifer via Madeleine on when we can make contact with FHSS for interviews  
Medium 

Decision:

Jennifer Windsor confirmed 08.10.15 that Heads of School had been informed of the approach and contact could now be made.

Melissa Gough will be available to support topic development.

Meeting scheduled with Melissa and Kristina for Friday 16th October.

Chrissi08.10.1512.10.15Closed
22Phase 2What is the agreed source of subject groupings and where will be it maintained? High 

Decision:

One version of the master spreadsheet (not a table in Confluence which is too difficult to maintain for this much data) to be maintained by Paul.

Copy of which will be on a confluence page.

All relevant related data to be held here, and no other versions to be held (or wont be updated by Paul).

Chrissi12.10.1512.10.15Closed
23Phase 2

Editorial review for topic pages

Medium  

22.10.15 - Tash Davey (Unlicensed) has provided a /wiki/spaces/CON/pages/21823688 which will be reviewed initially with the content team.

Discussed at the team meeting and notes documented.

 

12.11.15 - Anne drew up a proposed approach, Jane and Anne met with Tash to look at it - we were able to tweak it a little and create a final version. Jane is creating a tidy version in Visio which will be available on the Topic Page Content Development page in the near future.

Anne16.10.1512.11.15Closed
24Phase 2

Creation of UG programme pages:

Content sources for initial draft: Calendar, GUS

Content review: Martin Boswell, Faculty Manager (or designated alternative), Paul Seiler

Editorial review: TBC

 

Medium  

12.11.15 - Content sources and review discussed at project team meeting; editorial review still to be decided.

26.11.15 - Agreement is to use GUS for the source of the general content areas of an UG degree page AND to ask Martin Boswell, the faculty manager and Paul Seiler to review. Anne Nelson (Unlicensed) and Jane Young (Unlicensed) will create editorial review process. Anne Nelson (Unlicensed) will document these processes in Confluence.

Anne16.10.1526.11.15Closed
25Phase 2What videos can be used on the topic pages? Medium 

Discussed in the team meeting 22.10.15

Decision:

Know Your Mind videos can be used as appropriate on topic pages.

School videos can be used on the topic pages if approved by the schools.

Ask a Researcher videos may also be appropriate.

Anne22.10.1522.10.15Closed
26Phase 2What current content can be used in the topic pages? Medium 

Discussed in the team meeting 22.10.15

Decision:

Quotes etc, can be used in the topic pages if they are used as is, and do not require any editing.

Fun facts can be used if they come out of the interview process. No additional time sourcing them can be used.

Anne22.10.1522.10.15Closed
27Phase 2Are we going to use Scribe API to fetch information about Degree requirements OR are we going to insert all requirements manually into Squiz? High Ad Scribe API) Currently, developers are still waiting to get access information (login + password). This is necessary to assess whether or not it's technically possible to use Scribe API for our purposes.Joe Lobotka (Unlicensed)14.11.1514.11.15Open