Go Mobile programme

We held a ‘Sprint retrospective’ in the team last week. It was an opportunity to review our processes and actions, so we can be flexible during Go Mobile. It means we can improve things we feel didn’t work so well, and check our processes are on track for success.

Fen spent most of this week proofing Marine Science and Technology, and migrating the Student Services into T4 – the latter going live today. She’s now working on the Website Information and Feedback site, which should be ready to go live in Batch 3.

Jane is working with Accommodation, finalising the restructuring of key sections to help people find the things they look for most – quickly. The enthusiastic Accommodation team had loads of great ideas following their Go Mobile training, so Jane has helped work these up. Now we just have to build it!

Steve has been liaising with Civil Engineering & Geosciences to manage the transfer of their site to T4 and working on a few final decisions for content on the Marine and Mechanical Engineering websites.

Catherine and Emily have been working on the final content for the Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia site ready for their editor to start work next week.

Emma C and Andrew have been editing and proofing content on the Geography, Politics and Sociology site to get it ready to go live today.

Emily’s been proofing the Mechanical Engineering site, which will also go live later today.

Jane also met with the Pre-Arrival team, to give them a heads-up that Go Mobile is heading their way – they are scheduled for Batch 2.

Design and Technical developments

Catherine has started creating colour schemes for the Batch 2 sites and did some browser testing on the search facility for the new Clearing website.

Peter has been setting up some of the Batch 2 sites in their pre-migration template ready for the content team to start tagging them for migration into T4.

Google Tag Manage has been updated to send event tracking information for the T4 buttons (both action and link types) and scroll tracking. It’ll show how far people will scroll down a particular page.

Campaigns and other developments

Emma C met with colleagues from the Loyola Center to discuss adding information about their programme to the Study Abroad and Exchanges website.

Fen shared a list of content experts to follow on Twitter, and some tips and tricks for using bold text.

Training and support

Anne delivered another T4 CMS workshop this week (we’ve been running this session for a whole year!), and is preparing some bespoke training for 2 June.

We’ve received 31 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 15 of them.

Andrew has been working on news slides for the T4 media management training, looking at the optimisation and use of PDF documents.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re starting work on our next batch of sites, moving from the planning phase to assessing the audits, restructuring and preparing for migration into T4.

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Go Mobile programme

We’ve welcomed Fen Felton-Pitt to the team as a Web Content Officer. Everyone’s been involved in her induction. We’ve thrown her straight in to work on the Go Mobile programme, beginning with auditing sites for our next batch.

Jane had an initial meeting with the working group from Accommodation. There was lots of discussion, ideas and interesting proposals. We’re looking forward to seeing how the plans develop.

Linda met with the Business School to kick off plans for their Go Mobile development.

Catherine organised an intense two days of training and meetings while the NUMed staff were in the UK. And Emily’s been busy getting their site ready for migration into T4.

Emma C has done pre- and post- migration checks on the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology site. It’s now ready to hand over to the School’s web editor to work on the content.

Lisa carried out an audit of the Faculty of Medical Sciences website.

After a week enjoying the sunshine in Devon, Andrew has been doing a bit of restructuring of the Mechanical and Systems Engineering website as part of its T4 post-migration process.

Design and technical developments

We’re coming up with some designs and working prototypes for the Clearing site. This covers a course search and a way to highlight which courses are in Clearing.

The Google Analytics tracking code has been updated to Google’s latest version, Universal Analytics.

Catherine has been looking at the technical requirements for the first batch of sites to make sure we can accommodate all of their content needs.

Campaigns and other developments

Linda attended a half-day demo of a new system that the Advancement Team are investigating to manage events and alumni information. There will be some implementation on our website a bit further down the line.

Lisa wrote a blog post on our standards for using expandable content on websites.

Gareth met with Bill Chaudhry to scope out a new website for the Cardiovascular Research Centre

Training and support

Some lucky Training Team members (Anne, Emma, Linda and Lisa) can now use the Training and Events Management module in SAP. This means we can manage our training requests more effectively.

Jane created some bespoke Writing for the Web training for Careers editors. Who will only be focusing on News and Events.

Emma C ran another Media Management session. Following up on feedback from the attendees she is producing a guide of image specifications for photographers.

Emma B created and delivered a half-day training session for the team on Agile/Scrum project management methodology, which was more fun than it sounds! We’ll be thinking hard now about how to adopt some of the principles into our work.

Anne delivered a Contribute workshop, and also did some bespoke T4 training with Fen, our new Web Content Officer.

We’ve received 31 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 19 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re halfway through our current batch of Go Mobile sites. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be supporting web editors in schools and services as they work on their content. By the time of our next update, we’ll have a handful of shiny new sites to show you.

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Go Mobile programme

Project manager Jane was elated to see the new Careers and Careers Occupations websites go live – marking the end of a six-month project.

It was a massive achievement by our team (it did involve most of us) and Careers, which has significantly improved a vital University service online.

Lisa wrote up specific handover notes to help Careers manage their busy events schedule in T4.

Both Lisa and Andrew were on hand for go live, giving Jane smelling salts/support/sugar when needed.

Lisa also set about auditing the Medical Sciences site before taking a well-earned holiday.

Catherine, Emily and Emma C met with NUMED colleagues to talk through proposed updates to their site.

Emma C is working with Marketing and Student Recruitment on a new process for making student profiles re-usable across different sites and in different contexts.

The Alumni, Giving and 1834 Fund websites have merged to become a brand new site for Alumni and Supporters.

Andrew audited sites for Mechanical & Systems Engineering, Pre-Arrival, the Northern Institute for Cancer Research and Civil Engineering & Geosciences.

Design and technical developments

The team is currently working on the requirements for MyImpact profiles in T4.

They have further developed the course search and identifying courses in Clearing and Adjustments on the UGP website.

They have created pre-migration templates for batch one websites:

• NUMed
• Marine
• GPS
• Accommodation
• Medical Sciences

Training and support

Jane and Emma C ran sessions on planning and writing web content for editors with sites currently going through Go Mobile.

Anne ran a T4 CMS Basics workshop and bespoke T4 session for editors with sites going through Go Mobile. This week she’ll deliver a session for Careers staff looking at news, events and staff lists in T4.

We’ve received 30 support requests through NU Service Helpdesk and resolved 21 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’ve got a Media Management training session next week.

Jane starts her next Go Mobile project. Look out Accommodation, here we come!

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It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Find out what we’ve been up to, and what’s coming up.

Go Mobile programme

Linda’s been getting the Clearing site migration under way – the site has been migrated into T4 and is undergoing a post-migration check.

The alumni site is gearing up for go live on the 20 April – we’re running final checks and adding final content.

Linda’s set up a process to manage the content work coming through Go Mobile – using a combination and of technology (Trello) and Blue Peter (pin board, sticky tape and post its) – we’ll get this programme cracked!

Careers websites

Jane has project managed the Go Mobile process for the huge Careers website – and it’s finally on the last leg. Fair to say this one has been… ‘tricky’. She might need a lie down now.

It was so big, we’ve created four new, audience-focused websites:

• Careers Service
• Careers Occupations (information site)
• Employers
• Staff (internal)

The new Employers website went live on Monday 4 April, and both the Careers Service and Careers Occupations will go live on Wednesday 13 April.

Andrew is continuing to populate the Careers Occupations site, which is substantial. He’s certainly finding out a lot about the different kind of jobs you can get. He’s still very happy with being a web content officer – so no career change imminent.

Jane and Lisa finalised the post-migration work on the Careers Service site and handed over the final sections to editors. Jane is also organising some extra editorial and T4 training for Careers staff.

Lisa is also helping populate the Careers Occupations site, and is writing some handover notes for managing events on the Careers site after it goes live.

Emily is proof reading the Careers Occupations website, while Emma C is proof reading the Careers Service website – phew!!! All ready for go live next week.

Campaigns and other developments

Emma C is reviewing our editorial style guide with a view to making it more accessible and easy to use.

Andrew wrote a blog post with tips on how to avoid broken links on your site, and Jane added a quick guide to lists. Lisa wrote this month’s newsletter for the blog.

Training and support

Linda ran a media training session.

We’ve received 41 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 19 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

There’s induction planning for another content officer starting with us on the 25 April.

We’ve got another round of Planning and Writing Web Content workshops coming up, as well as a session on T4 Basics.

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Go Mobile programme

We’ve welcomed two Content Officers to the team to support our work on the Go Mobile programme. The whole team is involved in their induction, getting them up to speed with our systems and processes.

Meet Emily

I’ve been busy getting to grips with all the systems, processes and information I’ll need here in the CWD team. It’s only been a week and a half, but I’ve had a great time getting to know the team, what they all do, and where Andrew and I will fit in. Onwards to the next week!

Meet Andrew

I, too, have been trying to ease my feet under the table. The wonderful welcome and induction the team has delivered really has helped get Emily and I started. I’m working on the new career resources website, which is something I can really get my teeth into.

Emma C completed an audit of the Clearing website.

Linda has been finalising the go live schedule for the Alumni and Giving website.

The new site for the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering has just gone live.

Jane and Lisa handed over most sections of the Careers Website to editors last week, and are working through final sections.

Design and Technical developments

Andy has completed a set of photo audits for sites about to go through Go Mobile. He has reviewed assets in the University photo library to make sure we’ve got enough high quality images to use in the new template.

The Tech Team have been doing some housekeeping by optimising JavaScript and CSS to improve page performance.

Campaigns and other developments

Emma C worked with members of Marketing and Student Recruitment to produce an offer guide for taught postgraduate students.

Training and support

Jane and Lisa ran a fully subscribed Planning and Writing web Content session. We had attendees responsible for websites including Accommodation, the School of Biology and Online Events. Anne ran another T4 CMS Basics session, and Contribute workshop.

We’ve received 34 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 16 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

The content team are beginning to audit the next batch of sites to go through Go Mobile. We’ll also continue working alongside editors from Careers to get their new sites ready for go live.

And there’s quite a bit of holiday in the team over the school holidays. Destinations include Tennessee, New York, Palma and… Peterborough.

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