June 2021 Website Meeting

Notes

Lab pages progress

Once again, we discussed how the imagery Brian provided for the new Lab pages should be integrated into the design. Some of the artwork should essentially serve as background pieces. Shawn says he will look into how that all will work and look to follow up with Brian, while also CCing Nikky and Jessica when he does.

Shawn was wondering if Brian will be doing the editing himself, and Nikky says that he will. He was looking to sign up for training on how to use Umbraco.

Shawn says that a demo should be ready for early next week.

I.C.R.C. progress update

Shawn says that the changes to the I.C.R.C. site that was on the Public Health website is done, and that it now redirects to the new version of the site that is on Health Sciences. He says that he emailed them at the end of April, followed up with them three weeks later, and that the staff was still working on the site. But now, the old URLs point to the new website. Nikky mentioned that the Research Centers page on the Public Health site still has the center listed but no link. Shawn says we can update that.

We also discussed the potential of promoting Brian’s forthcoming lab page in this spot, and the pros and cons of this approach. Shawn thinks it would be valuable to have some sort of presence for the lab page here, however the group acknowledged concerns with making a person’s lab such a centerpiece on this page. Nikky says she will talk with management to think about how these situations will go moving forward.

Virtual Tour issues

Nikky wanted to point out some issues she and Jessica have run across when looking at the school’s Virtual Tour, specifically h ow some stops of the tour are more awkward than others in their position and orientation. Ultimately, it’s an issue with how Google Street View works and how it was captured and set up in their system. Nikky asked if she should personally reach out to Andy, who was responsible for capturing the tour imagery, but Shawn says it’d be better to ping Tara about these issues. The relationship between Andy and the university has deteriorated.

Nikky also mentioned that in an exterior shot of the building, Nikky’s vehicle is visible and her license plate is readable. This should not have happened, as typically things like license plate numbers, people’s faces, and other identifiable details are blurred out before the panorama’s are available online. Dan and Shawn will bring these issues up to Tara.

Nikky also wanted to know if there is a plan to add descriptors to the stops of the tours, similar to the way the WV STEPS tour displays information on each room of their tour. That’s a wholly separate project, and at this time with so many uncertainties surrounding all of the school’s tours, there is no immediate plans to add this functionality.

Promoting the virtual tour was another topic discussed, as Nikky asked where was the best place to include the tour. Shawn mentioned that the School of Medicine has been putting theirs in their job and student recruitment emails, but no other schools are using their tours in this manner yet. Some other ideas include linking to the tour from tuition and admission pages, or the school’s Visit Us page. Shawn mentions that the web team has had similar discussions with the School of Nursing concerning their tour.

Master of Science in Industrial Hygiene page

Nikky has asked to verify the tuition information for the new Master of Science in Industrial Hygiene program that is being added to the website, which is a program that previously was a part of Statler College. She has yet to hear back about the tuition, but will look to follow up, as the page is ready to go live. Shawn suggested contacting Eric Meadows about any questions dealing with tuition data. Shawn has dealt with Eric previously when seeking answers and guidance around other tuition issues.

Combining categories on the News page

With the Epidemiology and Biostatistics departments merging, it was brought to the web team’s attention that the separate, individual categories on the school’s News page will also need to be merged. Shawn will look into the steps to make this happen.

Identifying residency programs in “Who We Are” profiles

Jessica encountered an issue when adding a profile to the “Who We Are” section of the site. As the profile was for Kristin Cummings, a resident, there was no option to select residency programs in the “Education” tab in Umbraco. To get the profile up, Jessica selected an MPH option as a temporary solution, even though the profile is for a resident. The team will look into enabling residency programs to be selected for this.

Displayed categories for News stories

Nikky was wondering if it is currently possible to control what category tag gets displayed for stories in the News section of the site. It isn’t an option that’s available at this time, but Shawn would like Nikky and Jessica to send examples like this of things that they think News should have, as the web team has begun discussing some changes to how the News system works. Jessica noted that the category tag issue always seems to display the first category she picks on a story. Nikky and Jessica also pointed out some issues looking for Public Health stories on the Hub website. These are all issues that will hopefully be addressed with the new version of News that is in the works.

Siteimprove emails

Nikky was curious about emails she’s been receiving for a while now that come from Siteimprove. The text of the emails indicate that Adam Johnson is the person responsible for her receiving the emails, but she’s unsure of the legitimacy or purpose of the emails. Shawn explained that they are legitimate, and that Adam Johnson works for the downtown U.R. team as the university’s web accessibility expert. Siteimprove is a tool that the university uses to monitor, amongst other things, the accessibility of university websites. The emails include scores that indicate how well a website is doing from an accessibility, S.E.O., and usability standpoint.