Today is moving day! See you on the other side.

Go Mobile programme

Ongoing induction planning and planning for the programme overall.

Work on the alumni site is progressing well. There’s some development work needed on the fund areas with impact and some technical work needed to manage donations and events.

The Careers website has been migrated into T4. Jane and Lisa are carrying out post-migration work on the site to get it ready to hand over to editors next week.

Campaigns and other developments

The University is looking for a new Vice-Chancellor, in succession to Professor Chris Brink who retires in December 2016. We’ve been working with Corporate Affairs and Human Resources to develop a micro-site to promote this opportunity.

We’ve provided a bit of support to set up some online events pages for the HaSS Faculty.

Training and support

Over the next couple of weeks we’re delivering more Go Mobile Training sessions plus additional induction sessions for new team members.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’ll be settling into our new home in the Daysh Building – you can find us in room G11 previously used by Combined Honours. Why not pop in and say hello if you’re passing?

We’re still part of Corporate Affairs Directorate and can be contacted in the usual ways: email webmaster@ncl.ac.uk, via the IT ServiceDesk or by phone. Post should still be sent to King’s Gate Level 5.

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In January Graham Tyrrell joined the team as the University’s new Head of Digital.
With over 15 years’ experience in web and digital work, he’s worked in a number of not-for-profit organisations.

We promised you a post from Graham, to see what he’s been up to so far – so here it is…

I always see the start of a new job like starting a jigsaw. One of those fiendishly hard puzzles where they don’t print the final picture on the box. Oh, and they don’t tell you how many pieces there are. Nor whether they’re all in the box to start with!

So you dive in headlong, start with the corners and then try to build up the edges. Sometimes you put things in the wrong places, sometimes you scrap it and start again, then suddenly you get that little thrill when you see where a couple of edge sections can join up.

I started my job here as Head of Digital in the middle of January and that’s where you find me today, just putting together some of the edges of my work jigsaw. Meeting as many people across the University as possible, finding out what they do, what their needs are going to be from the Digital team, and how they’ll fit into the overall picture.

There have been times already where I’ve had to move pieces around as they don’t fit together how I originally thought they did. But at least I’m starting to understand the general type of picture I’m meant to be creating.

What have I learned so far?

I’ve learned that the Go Mobile project is a mammoth task that has impacts across the whole University. The project names belies a complexity beyond just making the website mobile optimised.

The Corporate Web Team, which I’m going to be referring from now on as the Digital Team, are a friendly, highly skilled and dedicated bunch of people. I’m really looking forward to working with and leading the team.

That it’s totally impossible to find anything via the staff homepage, but that apparently one of my first major projects for me is to introduce a new intranet to the University.

That the Digital Team will be working incredibly hard with NUIT over the coming months to take the University’s digital presence to the next level.

….and lots, lots more but I was always told to keep the audience wanting more.

So what’s next?

Well as all jigsaw aficionados know, once you’ve done the edges the next bit is to start on the blue sky!

Image credit: Jigsaw Puzzle 01 by Björn Larsson licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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This is probably going to be the last update from our team in its current state. In mid-March we’ll be moving from King’s Gate to the Daysh Building. At the same time we’ll be welcoming three new members to the team. Read on to find out what we’ve been up to recently and how these changes affect our plans for the next few weeks.

Go Mobile programme

Jane and Lisa are continuing to tag up the Careers website to get it ready to migrate to T4 next week.

Linda got back into proofing and went through two sites: Institute for Agri-food Research and Innovation and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Both are due to go live in the next week.

Design and technical developments

The tech team are currently supporting technical work needed for the Careers and Study Abroad website migrations.

We have received the final batch of updated virtual tours, giving us 80+ tours optimised for use on mobile devices. You can see some of the new tours on the Accommodation website and the Virtual Tours website.

Campaigns and other developments

Lisa has been making content updates to the Study website, and adding some Google analytics tracking to the Open Day website.

Emma B has been hard at work organising the team’s impending move to the Daysh Building as well as providing support for various smaller web projects around the Hass Faculty. She’s currently building a new site for the Newcastle Centre for Research on Entrepreneurship, Wealth and Philanthropy (REWP). Emma’s also spending time thinking about the best way to move the team to an Agile way of working – more info about this to come!

Steve has been developing some web content for the SAgE Faculty around the SAgE Professionals website and for two events: MINT Day and Makeup Your Mind.

Planning for Clearing is underway – it barely seems like five minutes since we were wrapping up the last campaign. The Clearing site is moving into T4 this year and NUIT are working on a new database to support the phone lines.

Training and support

Lisa wrote a blog post about editing other people’s content – take a look if you’re struggling to edit some complex content for your website. And Linda’s written up the blog round up for February – it’s heading your way on Monday.

Anne’s delivered workshops in both T4 CMS Basics and Contribute this week. She’s also been working with Staff Development Unit and NUIT to develop the training administration process for our new Training Room.

Emma C delivered another media management session this morning to a packed room of editors from schools in the Science, Agriculture and Engineering faculty, Marketing and Student Recruitment, Corporate Affairs and Careers.

Plans for the next few weeks

Anne will be working with SDU to setup some of the systems we’ll use to manage the training bookings for our new Training Room.

Emma C is working on the final edits to the new International websites ahead of the planned go live date in early March.

Linda’s preparing inductions for our new team members. And we’re all having a clear-out in readiness for our move to the Daysh Building. It’s amazing how much stuff even a digital team can amass over the years.

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It’s that time again – read on to find out what we’ve been up to over the past couple of weeks.

Go Mobile programme

The Science Central website went live on Friday 5 February.

We’ve handed over the Employers site to the site editors who are currently working on the content in T4 and sourcing new assets.

Jane and Lisa are building and tagging up the Careers website to get it ready for migration to T4. They’re also doing a first pass edit of the content to get it ready to hand over to site editors.

We’re planning the induction of some of our new starters (March 2016) – there’s a lot for them to learn about working in our team and the Go Mobile programme.

We’ll be advertising for one more Web Content Officer role in the next few weeks.

Skills development

Gareth and Emma B have completed their project management training – they and are now fully-fledged Certified Scrum Masters and Agile Practitioners. Well done Gareth and Emma!

Over the next few months, we will be looking at how we can change our methods of working to adopt Agile principles with the aim of making our work faster and easier for everyone.

Office Move – all change!

A quick heads up that the Corporate Web Team will be relocating in mid-March from Level 5 of Kings Gate to the ground floor of the Daysh Building in the space formerly occupied by Combined Honours. This ties in with our need to work in an Agile way. We’re therefore moving to a more collaborative space where our progress can be made visible on walls and whiteboards.

The new office will also mean that we can more easily assemble as a team every day to monitor progress and troubleshoot problems. We will of course let everyone know when we have a firm date for the move.

Design and Technical developments

The Video Wall and Central Virtual Tours website went live on 11 February. The Virtual Tours website now includes optimised versions of the tours that work on mobile devices.

Campaigns and web developments

Steve has been working on a recruitment website for the new batch of Graduate Ambassadors – Join the Team, which went live last week.

Training and support

We ran our first web editor community event on Wednesday 3 February. This session was for editors whose sites have been through the Go Mobile treatment and are now live. We shared some tips for using the new content management system and looked at some content types that we’ve developed since we began the programme.

Find out what one of the editors who attended the event thought in our Go Mobile web editor community event guest post.

So far, we’ve received 35 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 15 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

Over the next few weeks we’ll be busy getting ready for our office move and continuing work on the first batch of sites in Phase 2 of Go Mobile.

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We’ve had our heads down throughout January, busy getting ready for Go Mobile Phase 2, and have had some exciting changes…

A warm welcome to the new arrival in our team; Head of Digital, Graham Tyrrell.

Graham started on the 18 January. His remit is to help us to further develop and deliver a world-class digital/web experience for visitors, our students and staff.

With over 15 years’ experience in web and digital work, Graham has worked in a number of not-for-profit organisations; the Home Office, Royal Institute of British Architects, Cancer Research UK and Which?

We’re hoping we can get a guest blog post in the near future from Graham, so watch this space!

Go Mobile programme

The recruitment process is still ongoing for the new faculty web managers and content officers to help with Go Mobile, and the new office space is still on-track for March.

Linda has started building the new Alumni site in T4. Plans are to merge the current Giving to Newcastle, 1834 Fund and the Alumni sites. Rather than migrate lots of unwanted content into the system, the Alumni team have decided to write it all from scratch!

The International website will be split in two as part of Go Mobile. The part of the site focused on recruitment has been migrated into T4 and is currently being prepared to hand over to editors. Emma C is working with the Student Mobility and Integration team on restructuring the study abroad and exchange content. She has also met with members of the International Relations team to discuss rebuilding their site in T4.

Lisa has been making further content updates to the Science Central website to get it ready for proofreading next week.

The Careers website will become four new sites as part of Go Mobile – yes four!

Jane has started building the Careers website, working with the Information Team to clarify the new structure. She’s also building an online resource website for occupation information.

Catherine is helping out with an internal Careers site for staff, working with technical colleagues in both the Careers service and NUIT. And finally, Lisa is working on the build of a new Employers site. It’s already been migrated into T4, so Lisa is getting the content ready to hand over to editors.

Design and Technical developments

A new collection of accommodation virtual tours has been commissioned by Lynn Shaughnessy, in the Accommodation Team. They will be available for embedding into T4 websites. We are also making sure they are added to the central virtual tour website. They include:

• Albion House
• Kensington Terrace
• Park Terrace
• The View
• Turner Court

A to Z jump links can now be added to alphabetical staff lists and works in the same way as the jump links in the courses listings for the undergraduate and postgraduate websites.

The following websites have been imported into T4, ready for content editorial:

• Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• International Students
• Employers

We are finishing some technical developments and refining some of the content types which will be needed in the next phase of site migrations. We are also looking at the requirements of research project pages, news and events listings and staff personal web profiles.

Training and support

Linda and Lisa ran another Planning and Writing Web Content session.

Emma C ran media management training for members of the Press Office, NU Advancement and our own team.

Anne delivered two Contribute webinars for staff at NUMED, ran another T4 CMS workshop, and delivered a bespoke T4 CMS session for Press Office staff.

So far, we’ve received 27 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 19 of them.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re getting ready for our first web editor community event where we’ll host editors whose sites were completed in phase 1 of Go Mobile….we have organised lots of cake!

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