Category Archives: What we do

Team update: 17 – 30 September

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Our Go Mobile Phase 1 sites are now live!

Go Mobile programme

We’ve now made 17 Go Mobile sites live, including the University Homepage:

Stay tuned for more updates about the next phase of the programme, coming soon.

The Undergraduate site is back in T4, Linda has been checking the import and building new grid-based landing pages to the UG Team’s specification.

Design and Technical developments

Finalising Press Office News template build to include feeds to Plasma screens, social meta data and theme based news. As part of the Go Mobile clean-up old scripts and systems that are not required by the Press Office team have been noted for removal and other systems to be kept for archive purposes only.

External homepage build is complete with news scripts and site manager connection added to the revised mobile layout.

Training and support

Emma C is busy writing our new training module – Website Media Management. This session will cover finding and editing images, best practice for documents and uploading to the T4 Media Library.

Anne’s working on some bespoke T4 CMS training for the Press Office.

We’re busy planning the next phase of training for Go Mobile. More sessions are scheduled through October-December ready for the next batch of editors.

We’ve received 29 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 17 of them.

Campaigns and web developments

Lisa has been working with the editor of the Open Day site to carry out post-event updates

We’re trialling some new software to help us monitor our position in search rankings (on desktop and mobile) for targeted keywords.

Emma B has launched a new site for the Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute  and been working with her editors in APL and Law to iron out any post go-live glitches in the sites.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re now turning our attention to Phase 2, in which we plan to take the rest of the external facing website through the Go Mobile process (University login required). Phase 2 is planned to take place between January and December 2016.

The order in which we tackle sites is being prioritised by Faculty Steering Groups and central senior management. Once the order and timescale for each site is agreed, we will publish our plans on our website.

Feedback

Let us know what you think about our new mobile responsive websites – leave a reply.

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Team Update: 3 -16 September

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Welcome back! September is shaping up to be quite busy.

We’ve got our shiny new ‘back to school’ pencil cases with us and we’re not afraid to use them.

Go Mobile programme

The Go Mobile programme is finally in its launch phase for the first batch of sites.

Proofreading

There’s a lot of proofreading going on: we’re making sure our sites are following our new content guidelines. View our Go Mobile demo site or the University content standards (University login required) to find out more.

The whole team have been involved with proofing:

    • School of Biology
    • Newcastle Law School
    • School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape
    • Institute for Social Renewal
    • Institute for Cell and Molecular Sciences
    • Institute for Sustainability
    • Institute of Neuroscience
    • Study

Emma C and the editors for Athena SWAN have been putting the finishing touches to the new About the University pages.

Sites go live

Fanfare!

We’re really proud of the sites – go and have a look at them and let us know what you think in the comments below.

The next group of sites to go live includes the Institute for Cell and Molecular Sciences, Institute for Sustainability and Institute of Neuroscience.

Guest posts on what Go Mobile is like for editors

We’ve published two guest posts from Go Mobile editors so you can get their perspective of working on the programme. Read what Fiona Simmons (Social Renewal) and Ivan Lazarov (Press Office) had to say.

Next phase for Go Mobile

Gareth attended Executive Board on the 15 September to provide an update on progress and raise awareness and support for the next phase.

 Design and Technical developments

The tech team have finished building components needed for the Go Mobile template. We are busy re-importing some content like staff, news and events into T4 to make sure it’s all up to date before the sites go live.

The Press Office needs some bespoke content types setting up to manage the news and expert profiles. We’ve got the design and we’re nearly there with the CMS build.

Training and support

We’ve received 26 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 15 of them.

We’re developing some training and guidance around the new image dimensions in the Go Mobile template.

Details are already available on our Go Mobile demo site but as images have to be much higher quality for a smaller screen (counter intuitive I know), we felt that running a short session would help editors get up to speed. We’ll be in touch once dates are firmed up.

Campaigns and web developments

Steve has developed new pages for the recruitment of Student Ambassadors, Student Mentors and Street Scientists.

Catherine has been working on a website for a newly formed partnership between Newcastle University and our local NHS Trusts. The new site will be launched at the end of September. Find out about Newcastle Academic Health Partners.

Emma B has been working on webpages in the School of Arts and Cultures site for the newly formed Media, Culture, Heritage subject area, which has been created due to the merging of ICCHS and MACS.

Plans for the next few weeks

Make lots of sites live! By the next installment we’ll be approaching the finish line for the first phase of the project.

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Team update: 20 August – 2 September

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The team’s not back to full capacity just yet due to holidays but there’s still been lots going on over the past couple of weeks…

Go Mobile programme

It was an exciting day yesterday as the first two sites in the programme went live: Information for Schools and Colleges and Open Day.

The Undergraduate site has been successfully tagged and migrated back into T4. Now the real fun begins: checking, fixing, and adding new content and images.

Proofreading of sites begins in earnest: The Law School, Institute for Social Renewal, Biology and Architecture, Planning and Landscape are all being checked to make sure they meet our content standards.

Design & Technical developments

We’ve been making last minute refinements to components and have been finalising the footer design for all sites in phase one.

Training and support

Last week Anne ran two workshops: a T4 CMS workshop for editors of Agriculture, Food & Rural Development and Athena SWAN websites, and the monthly Contribute workshop. She also ran a Site Manager session for editors of the Accommodation website.

We’ve received 35 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 15 of them.

Campaigns and web developments

Lisa wrote a blog post about when to use expandable content, and has made some updates to the international pages of the Pre-Arrival site.

Linda wrote this month’s newsletter for the blog.

Plans for the next few weeks

September’s going to be a busy month for us as we get ready to launch the remaining sites in phase one of Go Mobile.

We’re also busy planning for phase two of the programme.

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Team Update: 6 – 19 August

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The last two weeks seem to have passed by in a blur, here’s what we’ve been up to.

Go Mobile programme

All sites in the first phase are nearing completion.

Lisa has been working with the editor of the Open Day website to finalise content updates. Linda proofread the Open Day site – it’s looking good!

Emma C has been testing out a new content type for profiles on the Institute for Ageing site. And is making final preparations for the Schools and Colleges website to go live.

Lisa has proof read the Schools and Colleges website. Anne is proofreading the Research website.

Steve is working with the Digital Institute to create a new responsive website.

Planning for phase two of the Go Mobile programme is underway.

Design & Technical developments

The design and build of components is almost complete. We have added an image gallery and carousel function to allow us to display multiple logos on sites.

We are making last minute refinements and planning for the re-import of some content (such as news, events and staff) before the sites go live.

Training and support

We’ve hosted two Go Mobile drop-in sessions. Anne’s also run a couple of short Sitemanager sessions with editors from CEAM and Accommodation.

We’ve received 34 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 23 of them.

Campaigns and web developments

Business as usual never stops.

We ran Clarity Grader reports on the Postgraduate site. This will help for the Postgraduate Team to improve the readability of their content.

There have been ongoing updates to the Clearing website as Clearing and Adjustment takes over the University!

We’re providing support to the Conference team to help improve the structure of their site.

Steve is working with the International Relations team on a new website to showcase the breadth of international connections and partnerships.

Emma B has produced a new site for Philosophical Studies as it moves from SAgE to the HaSS Faculty.

Our plans for the next few weeks

Lisa is writing a blog post about when to use expandable content.

Anne will be running another T4 CMS training session, as well as the monthly Contribute workshop.

We’ll begin tagging the undergraduate site for migration into the new content types in T4.

And the holidays continue.

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Conference Review: Institutional Web Management Workshop

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At the end of July I attended the 2015 Institutional Web Management Workshop at Edge Hill University. Here I met colleagues responsible for the design, development and content of university websites across the UK.

The title of the conference was Beyond Digital: Transforming the Institution. A series of plenary talks, workshops and practical masterclasses addressed the theme.

Digital transformation

We heard from a few institutions who have achieved transformation to new digital services teams. They recognise that digital cuts across all of the university’s functions. It is not the sole preserve of IT or marketing and communications departments.

“The web is something the university has.
Digital is something the university is.”
Mike McConnell, Business Applications Manager, University of Aberdeen

The University of Bath’s Digital Team have adopted an agile approach to the creation and delivery of content. This approach allows them to deliver products iteratively and often. We use elements of this methodology on the Go Mobile programme. And are looking at ways to apply it throughout our working practice.

Spotlight on user needs

User needs

If you’ve talked to anyone from our team recently you’ll know we’re all about user needs. I attended a masterclass run by members of Bath’s editorial team on working in an agile way. This focused on the role of user stories in the development process. User stories help to frame requirements for products from the user’s perspective. For each user task identified a series of user stories are written, following the format:

As a… (user type)

I want/need… (task)

So that… (benefit)

The development team use these stories to find solutions that are focused on the user and meet their needs.

Many other universities are working on website projects just like Go Mobile. In a recent overhaul Liverpool John Moores University reduced the size of its website from 12,000 to 1,000 pages. They did this by focusing on what pages users were actually visiting. What’s more, all their content was brand new!

Conclusion

The conference was extremely valuable. It was good to hear from the people successfully leading transformation at their institutions. And great to meet new people in the same line of work to share ideas and experiences.

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