We’re half way through January already and Christmas is just a distant memory. Here’s what we’ve been up to for the first couple of weeks of the new year.

Go Mobile programme

Lisa has rebuilt the Science Central website in T4. She’s edited the content so that it works in the new mobile responsive template.

Work has started on the central sites (International, Careers and Alumni) that are going through Go Mobile with an aim to go live mid-March.

We’re busy recruiting our new faculty web managers and content officers. That means planning interviews, inductions and new office space.

Design and technical developments

We’ve added Google Analytics tracking to the global menu links to see how it is used.

We often work with the University IT Service and third party developers to produce web applications. We’ve produced digital brand and visual identity guidelines to ensure consistency across these products.

The next batch of virtual tours are due to be converted to the responsive template by Revolution Viewing. This means we’ll have all virtual tours ready for the sites going through phase 2 of Go Mobile.

The Careers and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering sites have been copied into the pre-migration template. We’re working on these now to get them ready to migrate into T4.

Training and support

We’ve received 33 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 26 of them.

Anne’s been getting to grips with Adobe Connect web conferencing software. She’ll be using it to deliver two Contribute webinars to colleagues in Malaysia next week.

Planning is underway for our first ever web editor community event. For the first session we’ve invited editors with sites that have been through the Go Mobile programme and come out the other side.

Plans for the next few weeks

The University’s new Head of Digital, Graham Tyrrell, starts with us next week. We’ll be taking some time getting to know him and showing him what we’re working on.

We’ve got planning and writing for the web, and T4 training sessions running on 21 and 28 January.

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After months of hard work from the Web Team, Undergraduate Marketing and our IT Service, the Undergraduate website is now responsive.

The Undergraduate site is one of the largest and most popular parts of the ncl.ac.uk web presence. It uses many of the Go Mobile design features (grids, mastheads, buttons) and also introduces a few bespoke elements:

• at a glance course content
• student profiles
• related courses

The whole site has been updated in line with our writing for mobile standards; this means our site users should find it easier to access the content. The new site makes full use of our template’s ability to support larger images and video content.

Lisa is working with colleagues in the Institute for Sustainability to rebuild the Science Central site in T4.

Emma C is working with colleagues in Marketing and Student Recruitment and the International Office to prepare the International website for Go Mobile.

Design and Technical developments

Peter has been working on the pre-migration template for the International website. He has also taken copies of the Undergraduate PDF brochures. This allows the UG Marketing team to work with ReportLab to get their system to work with the new Undergraduate website.

Andy has been working on amends to the Undergraduate course profile for use on tablet and mobile devices.

The tech team also conducted final Internet browser testing. This makes sure that amended scripts and styles are cross browser compliant.

Training and support

Emma C ran our last two training sessions of the year, both on Media Management. And she’s working on a report template to present the excellent training feedback we’ve been getting.

We’ve received 27 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 22 of them.

Campaigns and web developments

Steve has been working on a new University International Relations external facing website. The aim of the site is to communicate our internationalisation priorities to an external audience. It includes a Google map showing all our strategic partnerships, and UK and overseas campuses.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re closing shop for the Christmas break. Here’s what some of the team will be doing over the holidays:

• Linda plans to drink Christmas ales, eat Wensleydale and cranberry cheese and listen to festive Bob Dylan songs
• Lisa will be eating chocolates and enjoying some cheesy Christmas films
• Anne will be doing most of the above but will substitute the ale for wine
• Emma C will be baking stollen and playing Trivial Pursuit

And we’ll all be returning to work on January 4th eager to get stuck in to phase 2 of Go Mobile.

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Go Mobile programme

The Physics website went live on 2 December.

We’re working with the Alumni team to plan their new sitemap and content. The aim is to start the site development in the New Year.

The Accommodation Office are getting ahead by rewriting their content using Hemingway, reworking their sitemap and reviewing Google analytics.

Design and Technical developments

The Tech Team are supporting redevelopment of the enquiry and prospectus request forms. Providing information about mobile usability.

Catherine is looking at possible new layouts for our staff profile pages.

Peter has produced the proofing PDFs for the Student Profiles on the Undergraduate website.

Andy’s been working on a photo collection process that will help to identify quality photos for the Go Mobile transformation cycle. This process will also highlight where there are gaps in the photo assets. Andy’s also worked with Undergraduate Marketing on the updated Central Virtual Tour website.

Training and support

The feedback is in from our latest round of Go Mobile training and it’s overwhelmingly positive. We use the comments from this to continually adapt and improve the sessions, so thank you to everyone who completed the survey.

Linda and Lisa delivered training on planning and writing web content on Thursday 26 November. Anne delivered T4 CMS training on Monday 7 December, and is preparing to deliver a session for colleagues from our Newcastle London campus next week.

Catherine has been pulling together documentation covering all stages of website migration and setup into our Admin Handbook.

We’ve received 32 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 12 of them.

Nielsen Norman Group UX certification

Lisa has successfully passed her exams for the Content Strategy (days 1 and 2) course run by the Nielsen Norman Group. Well done Lisa!

Campaigns and web developments

Lisa wrote this month’s newsletter for the blog.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’ve got two Web Media Management training sessions coming up before Christmas. Both are fully booked.

The Undergraduate site is on track to go live just before Christmas. We’ve a lot of final checks over these next two weeks.

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Go Mobile programme

Planning for phase 2 of Go Mobile is underway.

We’re recruiting for some new staff in the new year and planning an office move: this is all to help us complete the Go Mobile Programme.

There’s a lot to sort out so we’re getting ahead where we can.

There has been planning of sitemaps and requirements for the Alumni, Giving, International, Careers Service and Accommodation sites.

Undergraduate (UG) work continues. The majority of pages are nearing completion. We’re entering a period of proofing and checking.

Lisa has been finalising audits for the Business School and Careers websites, which will be going through the Go Mobile process early next year.

The Digital Institute site is now live!

Design and Technical developments

The tech team are ironing out some snags which arose during the development of the Phase 1 sites.

Catherine is working on documentation to outline some of the processes involved in importing and setting up new sites in T4.

Peter has been developing changes to the T4 UG template so we can export editable PDFs of content. This means that our outsourced proofing can all be handled online. As we work towards the deadline for go live, there have been technical changes to some of the UG specific T4 content types.

Andy has been collating the Phase 2 set of virtual tours to be converted for use on mobile devices. 28 additional tours have been identified and are in the process of being procured. There will also be updates to the virtual tour website.

Training and support

Interest in our training is increasing – sessions pre-Christmas are fully booked. We’ve a Planning and Writing Web Content sessions on the 26 November. Our new Media training is also going down well – we’ve two more sessions in December.

We’re now planning for training in phase 2 of Go Mobile and have sessions booked for the first two batches in 2016.

We’ve received 35 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 20 of them.

Nielsen Norman Group UX Certification

Jane has successfully passed her exams for the Content Strategy (days 1 and 2) course run by Nielsen Norman. Well done Jane!

Campaigns and web developments

Emma C is on a roller coaster of love and hate with Google Analytics. She’s developing a model to help set objectives and measure the success of specific areas of the site.

Jane has been helping the Press Office get ready to promote some televised debates, due for broadcast on Channel NewsAsia in December.

We added some pages to the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering website to promote our 2016 Doctoral Training Awards.

Plans for the next few weeks

Lisa is writing this month’s newsletter for the blog.

Anne’s working on a Contribute webinar for staff at NUMed.

We are providing support for the next Research Impact campaign in the run up to the end of the year.

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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

Plans for the next phase of Go Mobile are underway. We’re busy planning, meeting with site editors and carrying out preparation and benchmarking on the next batch of sites.

Linda met with our Alumni colleagues to start planning the Newcastle University Alumni and Giving to Newcastle sites. They’re up next for Go Mobile.

Jane met with editors from the Careers website while Steve and Lisa met with editors for the Science Central site.

The Accommodation Office are keen to get started with the process, we’re working with them to see what updates they can make to their site to help them prepare for the Go Mobile process.

If you’re thinking ahead why not take a look at our blog post on Decluttering your site for Go Mobile.

Design and Technical developments

The tech team have been busy with ongoing developments in T4 including:

• building a new sitemap for the website
• work on the Undergraduate and Press Office sites
• building the central virtual tours in T4

Andy and Catherine also met with the Publications team to discuss photography planning for the next phase of Go Mobile.

Training and support

Jane and Emma C delivered training on planning and writing web content for the next group of editors with sites in Go Mobile.

We’ve received the feedback from our first Web Media Management training sessions. It’s really positive and shows that this is a welcome addition to our programme of training for editors.

We’ve received 56 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 27 of them.

Industry conferences, workshops and training

Peter and Catherine are attending an advanced JavaScript course on-site.

Jane and Lisa attended the Content Strategy workshop at Nielsen Norman’s Usability Training Week in London. They came away with loads of ideas to develop and implement into Go Mobile – and affirmation that we’re doing great things from fellow content professionals.

Emma C will be attending the Nielsen Norman workshop on analytics and user experience workshop later this week.

Campaigns and web developments

Always thinking ahead, we’re reviewing the Clearing database ready for next August!

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re in the final five weeks of the Undergraduate site development. It’s all hands on deck to make sure we get all the content elements in place and the site signed off.

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