October 2023 Website Meeting

Notes

Launch of the redesigned “Community & Global Engagement” page

Since our last meeting, the group has launched the newly-redesigned “Community & Global Engagement” page. Wendy said the feedback to the change has been overwhelmingly positive, with people being excited to give her content that can be displayed on this page. Shawn said that it may be the first time anyone has said anything like that about updating content on one of our sites.

Wendy said that the timing for launching this redesigned page couldn’t be more perfect, as the school is preparing additional study abroad programs to offer to students. The school is ready to run a new program in Cypress, and with the closure of Alderson Broaddus University this year WVU will be assuming a program that school ran in the Philippines.

Update on tuition

The web team has updated tuition for the 2023–2024 school year across the campus’s websites. Shawn says that towards the end of the month, he will be working to remove any Health Science figures on the university’s central tuition resources and, instead, have those resources point to the information on the Health Sciences site, which should always be accurate and up-to-date.

Looking ahead

As the dust continues to settle on the restructuring surrounding the web team and its relationship with ITS, the team is now turning its focus on bigger picture stuff, like adopting a new ticketing and tracking system. Additionally, as result of the merger mess, there is a desire amongst the web team to become more self-sufficient in the systems that they use and avoid depending so heavily on other groups for solutions. With that being said, the group has begun the process to determine what content management system would be ideal moving forward. Umbraco Cloud is an option, but there are many more choices that should also be considered. Regardless, there should be an expectation that within an 12–18 month timeframe, we will be likely migrating to a different system.

Video option on “Campuses” page

Last week, Wendy reached out to Jason with a request to somehow integrate a video that Tyler had created highlighting the new Bridgeport campus onto the “Campuses” page. Jason proposed changing the content setup such that for a particular campus a static image or a video could be specified to be display above the campus’s summary text. This was subsequently implemented, and the video now displays in that area.

Changing the call-to-action language on program indices

Turning our focus to more admissions- and recruitment-related topics, Wendy asked if it would be possible to change some of the language that appears on action links on the program index pages (e.g., “Undergraduate Programs,” “Graduate Programs,” etc.). The text currently reads “Apply Now,” but the text of the linked pages don’t directly lead a user to an application flow. Instead, the pages are more like instructions on how to go about applying for a particular program. Additionally, the current wording may detract visitors from clicking the links, thinking that doing so would begin the process of applying, and that may not be something the individual is prepared to do.

It is therefore Wendy’s suggestion that we re-label these button links to something more like “How to Apply.” The web team agrees and has no objection to this change. It shouldn’t take much to make this update, and Jason will keep Wendy posted on progress.

Data tables appearing on program pages?

Wendy spotted what appears to be a table based on a progression plan on the page for the Family Nurse Practitioner track of the Post-Master’s program. She was wondering if this was something that the web team had implemented, as we have discussed implementing a solution that allowed for progression plans to be easily constructed in web pages rather than relying on linked PDF documents. The web team has not taken any additional steps to do this, however. The table that appears on this page is most likely the result of someone copying a table out of an already existing PDF or Word document and pasting it into Umbraco. Regardless, this table shouldn’t be on a page like this. It is the web team’s recommendation that for the time being the table be removed and the content of that table be converted to a format more appropriate for the page or that a link to a PDF with the table in it be added. This can be seen as a temporary solution until we can further explore the idea of getting the school’s curriculum and progression plans as accessible content into Umbraco.

Revisiting curriculum plans for website, meeting shuffling

This led to a broader discussion about those plans to digitize the school’s curriculum in Umbraco in order to potentially build out an online catalog and progression plan solution for the school. Wendy reminded the group that Nursing’s academic dean left this year, and that the role was subsequently split into two new roles. She wondered if it might be beneficial to bring those two new people into a meeting with the web group as a way to bring everyone up to speed on our plans for a curriculum section of the website.

This led Shawn down a bit of tangent about future school meetings, as he has been in discussions with Tara about moving some recurring meetings around a bit. The plan is to begin moving our Nursing meeting to Tuesday afternoons. This would work for Wendy, as 2:00 on the first Tuesday of each month would be open for her and everyone else. Additionally, going forward, the entire web development team will be attending all school meetings, so Rachel and Matt will be attendance starting next month. Roles and responsibilities within the web team are going to shift a little, and having the entire team present is going to help facilitate more shared ideas and approaches across all of the Health Sciences schools and their sites.

With the shift in meeting dates now set, Shawn says Wendy is free to forward the appropriate meeting invite to the additional school leadership to participate in an upcoming meeting so that we can discuss the curriculum projects for the site.

New analytics dashboard

Bill has been hard at work, collaborating with Dan and Tatsu Johnson of the downtown U.R. team, on developing a dashboard for Google Analytics that HSC communicators can use. This has been added as a link to the left sidebar on each school’s Cabin page.

The dashboard gives communicators a quick overview of key statistics about their school’s website. While the current setup hits a large portion of the important statistics that might be desired, further customization is a future possibility  as new needs become apparent. This dashboard effectively replaces the monthly reports that Bill had been putting together for each school, which will save him a ton of time. Shawn hopes that these dashboard will unlock details that Wendy can use to blow her dean’s mind.

NCLEX stats redesign

Finally, Jason wanted to check in with Wendy regarding the NCLEX statistics page that was created for a couple of the school’s programs. The initial design for the data on this page was a table that listed the yearly first-time and overall pass rates for the NCLEX. More recently, the school has opted to not include the overall pass rate and instead focus solely on the first-time pass rates. With this simplified data, a table no longer made sense, so Jason refactored the design to simply be a key-value list with subheadings. Wendy had wanted to run the new design past some Nursing staff for feedback, and she says that the sole person that has gotten back to her approved of it. Jason will now work to make this change live.