January 2021 Website Meeting

Notes

Audio clips in profiles update

We began the meeting by briefly discussing some of the items that were brought up in December’s meeting. The web team has been working on a solution to better integrate audio clips into the site’s “Who We Are” profiles. They met briefly before this meeting to discuss some initial solutions, and are going to spend the next few days iterating on those ideas. Shawn thinks that a solution should be ready in the next week to week-and-a-half time frame.

Mask survey update

Rachel has worked on transitioning to a solution where the percentages are more of a focus than the raw numbers in each category and its accompanying chart. She mentioned that the charts that are on the live site at the time of the meeting were only intended to be an interim solution, and that she is in the process of finalizing a new design. One feature of the updated design is that when viewed in smaller contexts, the charts flip orientation to better fit the screen.

Nikky mentioned that she has been in contact with various parties associated with the mask survey initiative. As it stands now, the plan is to proceed with making charts for future datasets. She also has not gotten any feedback on any of what has been created so far, which means really no complaints from anyone.

Google Analytics updates

Shawn wanted to mention that the team will be making some behind-the-scenes updates to the way Google Analytics works on all of the school websites. These updates will likely not change much of anything for communicators or editors, but updates will be shared as they come up during this process.

School changes

Nikky gave us all a heads-up about some upcoming structural changes to the school. She mentions that there are some shake ups planned concerning the school’s programs, including some consolidation and bringing on new programs from other schools.

Priorities going forward

Nikky wanted to ask again about what the priorities should be for the new semester and year, and what—if anything—is coming on the horizon in terms of big projects and initiatives.

Shawn focused mainly on the forthcoming updates to the News system, which were touched on a bit in the last meeting. This particular project will likely begin in late summer. He mentions that when work on this project really starts moving, he is going to want to meet with small groups from all across campus, specifically Nikky and Jess. And he wants to keep the groups in the meetings for this project on the smaller scale, rather than having to deal with a large group of communicators. Dan will be running point on refreshing the administrative side of the whole News system. The team will be looking to solve workflow issues that exist in the current system or ideas for new features to implement. One of the big focuses will be improving the way information in the system can be shared not only among internal groups but also to news media outlets. There will be plenty of preliminary meetings to discuss these new features.

Virtual Decide WVU Day?

Nikky was wondering what the plans were for this year’s Decide WVU Day, and whether the decision has been made to make this event completely virtual. Dave says that is the case, and that the event will be a week long starting on April 17.

Nikky thought a good thing to do for Decide WVU Day/Week is to start by duplicating the structure of the school’s “Discover” page and updating the page with fresh content that focuses more on outcomes and having more of a graduate student perspective.

Shawn was curious about the make-up of such a campaign page’s audience as it relates to the ratio of in- vs. out-of-state students. He mentions this because a campaign page was built for the School of Medicine’s Match Day that utilized an interactive map. The map of the U.S. had clickable states that presented the user with a list of students who were matched to institutions within a particular state. Shawn said this pattern could be adapted for the Decide WVU page. If the focus is more in-state, a similar map could be developed, only focusing on that State of West Virginia, with clickable counties. Nikky wasn’t sure about those statistics off of the top of her head, but she said she would be able to look those up.

Ten-year anniversary

Nikky again brought up that the school will be celebrating its ten-year anniversary in 2022, and that she's begun building data for a way to highlight this on the website. Dave recommended seeking out graduates from the school’s first class and interviewing them to see what they’ve been able to accomplish with their degrees.

Shawn wanted to present Nikky and Jessica the option to hold more meetings to discuss this topic further if they wished, whether that be by increasing the frequency of the regular meetings to be more than once a month, or to gather in between the normal meeting dates to hash out ideas and further the preparation for the celebration on the site.