As Web Content Manager, I’m the editor responsible for all content you read, watch and listen to on bath.ac.uk. My job is to make sure that I keep our 2.5 million readers happy; not an easy task trust me.

This is something I am familiar with from my previous role at Bournemouth University, working as part of a HEIST nominated team for education marketing.

With over a quarter of a million pages we share many of the same problems other large organisations have with content, including:

• bloat
• no clear calls to action
• poor organisation of information.

The good news is that we are well on our way to sorting these problems out with the launch of the new homepage, study, faculty and departmental websites during 2011.

The stakeholders I have had the chance to speak to have told me the new website is much easier to navigate and read. I have to agree!

This year it is our plan to launch the new About, Business and Research websites, as well as beginning work on the new staff intranet.  We will also be making changes to our training and support materials to help make your lives easier.

I also hope to start blogging more regularly. If you have any questions you’d like answered here on the Web Services blog  - it would be great to hear from you.

2012 looks like it’s going to be an amazing year. I can’t wait!

Photography: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kslavin/1019160747/sizes/l/in/photostream/ CC BY-NC

This is the point where I am supposed to give some kind of retrospective about what has and what hasn’t worked. We tried Scrum as a project management setup, for instance. That didn’t work for us but we learned a lot from our experiences and many aspects are still present in our day to day working practices. We tried a specific mobile site for out last Open Day. The statistics and feedback show that this was a success, and one we could better in the future.

It is difficult to single out a single event as the definitive expression of the team’s work during the year however I’m going to give it a go. For me, the pinnacle was the launch of the new homepage. It marked the point where the central university site changed from being old and blue with a few new-style pages into a proper new site with some old and blue pages yet to be replaced. It really was a turning point and I think the way the site is changing into a professionally designed and written cohesive environment is a great monument to the hard work of everyone in Web Services.

Lots of other things have happened, of course. It would be lovely to have everyone here select high points from the last year however since almost everyone else has already retired for the year for a well-earned rest, I’m going to abandon that idea. All that remains is to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone here at Web Services!

I am the Web Supporter for the University of Bath. In other words, the friendly face at the other end of the RT queue here at Web Services! So far it has been a very interesting and varied role with a range of queries about all things web and delivering training courses on the Content Management System. It is a very different environment after working for Wiltshire Police previously but at least I don’t get chairs thrown at me anymore!

During my time here so far I have attended the Web Dev Conference in Bristol which had some really interesting presentations about HTML5 and Designing for Emotion. Some exciting things to come I think in the world of web.

I have also been compiling statistics regarding the queries and requests we get through the RT system and I have found some very interesting facts regarding the queries that we get.

Did you know that in November:

• 10% of tickets received needed more information from the requestor
• The top query was to ask about making changes to a CMS page

So please make sure you include as much information as you can when making a request or raising a query.

I have also made an analysis of tickets in the last 3 months and the number of tickets resolved within 1 day has increased by 34% and the number of tickets resolved within 1 week has increased by 35% – so we are definitely going in the right direction as you can see:

Graph of RT queries resolved in 1 week

I am really enjoying myself here and look forward to bumping in to one or two of you around the campus soon.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

The percentage of visitors to our site whom Google Analytics classifies as using “Mobile” devices currently runs at 3.4% (up from 1.4% this time last year) but since we always see a spike in mobile traffic on an Open Day and during the days leading up to it we thought we’d try and make a little more of it.

Time was tight and we only had a couple of days to get something up and running (many thanks to Kelv and Liam for pulling it all together!), but we managed to go from my “spec” on the back of a Dilbert cartoon (no, the irony was not lost on me!):

to this in balsamiq:

to this in photoshop:

to the real thing:

It highlights and links to some of the pages we know to be the most trafficked over past open days, as well as having some unique information like allowing visitors to download the mp3 audio tour. Most of the links are to our fixed-width desktop site, but that’s an obvious target for improvement on our next Open Day in July.

We promoted it in two places – firstly from our Mobile Bath site on m.bath.ac.uk but we also displayed a lightbox to people visiting our main homepage on www.bath.ac.uk who had a screen width of less than 800px – this was the only worry I had over doing this work – although it’s a very small number of people, would it be invasive enough to cause complains? Well, we had a feedback form available at the bottom of the mobile open day page, and all the comments were positive!

In the end I think we probably launched a day or two too late to capitalise on the traffic effectively but it was a great experiment to do and we took a lot away for future projects of this type.

Sophie has already said hello on this blog and over the next few weeks the other three (Julian Buchannun, Chris Shimmin-Vincent and Rich Prowse) will also be introducing themselves here  -you can get a sneak preview on our Team page!. We’re really thrilled to have them on board, helping us deliver the best web experience that we possibly can.

Of course having also recently said goodbye to both Andy Savin and Yvonne Aburrow we now have some vacancies in the team again which we’ll be advertising as soon as we can, so keep your eyes peeled!

When I first came to work at the University of Bath in 2002, I worked as an Experimental Officer in the Psychology Department (covering maternity leave). None of my friends were quite sure what an experimental officer was – in fact I was there to build the website and catalogue the extensive library of journal articles and videos.

In 2003, I was recruited by Dave Cunningham to work for Computing Services, building a website called the Research Observatory, which provides an overview of how to get a PhD. The project eventually migrated to the University of the West of England, where it still exists.

The next member of the Web Development Team (as it was then called) was Andrew Male, who was fairly swiftly followed by Andy Savin, who came to work on the Personal Information Portal and the Web of Hope, which was for an external client (in those days we were funded on a project basis).

In 2005, Phil Wilson joined the team to work on a content management system for Oakfield campus, Swindon, and Kelvin Gan joined from the School of Management to work on Moodle and the Learning Materials Filestore. I think I was working on the BUCS website around this time, as well as continuing with work on the Research Observatory.

In 2006, Martin Owen joined to work on an online prospectus and a tool for RAE submission; Tom Natt joined to work on user accounts and Person Finder, we introduced our first wiki using JSPWiki, and Andrew Male became BUCS Web Development Team leader.

In 2007, I worked with Tom Natt on the Holburne Muse project – an online catalogue of the Holburne Museum’s collection. Later that year, the BUCS Web Development Team merged with the Marketing and Communications web team, and we became part of Corporate Communications, acquiring three new members.

In 2008, we were renamed Web Services, and Alison Kerwin joined us as head of Web Services. During 2008, we were rolling out our content management system, and I was heavily involved in migrating sites, helping to develop tools (such as a character map and a PersonFinder interface), recruiting and managing students to help with the migration of sites and the editing of content.

Also around this time, Alison introduced GetCreative – a project where the whole team would work on developing something exciting. The first year, we built FlatOut, a web app for finding student accommodation; the second year, we built InPictures, a photo sharing site for the University of Bath.

Around this time, we introduced Scrum, and worked on a huge array of projects in record time. We rolled out various iterations of the Study and Research websites, worked on the ceremonies website. The Scrum methodology was very different to how we had worked before; previously we had worked on individual projects, and now we worked as a team (or as a small team within a team) on bigger projects.

Ultimately Scrum did not work for us because it is designed for teams with fewer and more discrete projects, and we have a lot of stuff to work on, plus covering web support for the University. Interestingly we have now shifted back towards individuals being responsible for specific projects. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, and all that.

I have enjoyed working with my colleagues, who are all very talented people and fun to be with but now I’m off to pastures new!

There’s a great atmosphere on campus, with something new to see on every corner. From performances by our very own Juggling and Circus Skills Society, to a steel band playing their own take on modern classics, there really is something for everyone. We’ve even witnessed a spectacular performance by the Bath University Student Theatre Society (BUST) in our amphitheatre.

While the parade is bustling full of students exploring our wide variety of facilities and eateries, the Info Fair in the Sports Training Village is a hive of activity. It’s great to see prospective students and parents chatting with staff and students from all departments, finding out what our fantastic campus has to offer.

A real sense of pride and achievement is in the air today, with staff and students excited to be part of this special day. It’s also our first opportunity to witness the full impact of the new University of the Year signage and we can happily report it looks incredible!

We hope prospective students and their families enjoy visiting today as much as we have enjoyed hosting the event. We look forward to welcoming the return of some of our visitors as they enrol as students next autumn.

Unfortunately, we must disappear now – the steel band is about to play the hits of ABBA!

Aggregate student numbers in the UK have doubled in 20 years with a downturn in the national economy prompting a review of higher education funding. In England the balance of funding is going to change – with much of the cost of courses switching from the taxpayer to the student.

Like many industry professionals I’ve worried how the changes will affect me personally – how will my role change and what challenges will I face in trying to fulfil it?

At the start of this month I attended the CASE Europe Annual Conference which was held in my hometown of Manchester.

‘The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) is a professional association serving educational institutions and the advancement professionals who work on their behalf in alumni relations, communications, development, marketing and allied areas.’

As a group of professionals we are all interested in furthering higher education, promoting its benefits and aiding our institutions in recruiting the best students and getting the most funding possible.

Having attended the conference in Glasgow last year I was impressed with the level of knowledge of the speakers. They range from vice-chancellors, to marketing directors, to one of the founders of Facebook.

There were a few dominant themes that occurred time and again during the sessions I attended this year:

• the government is determined to increase competition within the sector
• universities must differentiate themselves in a changing marketplace
• as an industry we need to sell the benefits of a university education
• prospective students are consumers with more choice than ever before and with a myriad of ways to get information
• our students expect a high return on investment

During the opening plenary I looked around and thought how great it is to sit in a room with six hundred passionate people – all determined to change alongside the challenges.

I feel strongly that marketing and communications teams within higher education will change – and hopefully for the better. We need to act more strategically and work across our institutions to give a clear and consistent message to our students, applicants and graduates.

In the future I think we will realise that students are going to make more informed and considered choices about which courses to study. They won’t stop coming – but they will be more educated before they arrive.

We’ll be working with students from ‘cradle to grave’ – we can’t just cultivate prospective students and then pick things back up when they are alumni. It’s important that we recognise the importance of our current students as reputation ambassadors and community builders.

Getting back to the office my fears about higher fees putting students off are allayed. I think that the benefits of a university education will always remain clear.

Perhaps my judgement was clouded by learning that we have been awarded Sunday Times University of the Year 2011-12.

As the great Bob Dylan said:

‘Your sons and your daughters are beyond your control,
your old road is rapidly changing’

Image of Manchester Central Convention Centre courtesy of AtilaTheHun (Flickr).

My new place of work!

It’s been an exciting few weeks for me, settling into my new role and exploring this amazing city. I’ve enjoyed spending the days learning new systems and meeting stakeholders, the evenings sight-seeing and discovering many of the fantastic restaurants and coffee shops around the city.

At the end of July, I made the move from sunny Yorkshire to join the team as Web Content Editor for the business and research sections of the site. After working in the Web Team at the University of Hull, I was excited to see how things work in another higher education environment.

So far, I’m really enjoying myself. I’ve been blown away by the friendly and welcoming nature of the team who have all done their best to make sure I settle in – taking me for lunch, helping me with directions and inviting me to join them in after work activities.

For the first few weeks, I’ve been focusing on the business website. I’ve buried my head in statistics, audited content and evaluated the journeys of internal and external users. After lots of hard work, I’ve formulated a plan for the new external-facing business website and have started developing content and mocking-up new homepage designs. Exciting stuff!

There are lots of interesting projects coming up in the next few weeks. I’m very excited about attending my first CS Forum next week in London, with talks from world leaders in content strategy such as Gerry McGovern and Karen McGrane. It’s going to be great learning lots of new ideas we can implement in the near future!

Our exciting new mobile site

This month, we’re really excited about our first leap into the world of mobile.

After lots of hard work, we’re almost ready to launch our first version of Mobile Bath. While we prepare for our official launch, those wanting a sneak preview can now view the mobile site and give feedback on their experiences.

Our exciting new site allows Apple iOS and Android users to view a campus map, search our people directory and check the availability of on-campus PCs. You can even check out the latest campus news and watch our fantastic University YouTube videos.

This is just the start of our work for mobile devices. Over the coming months, we’re hoping to add lots of exciting new features. We’re also planning to use the site to help users during special events, such as open days.

As it’s still under testing, mobile users will not be automatically redirected to the mobile site. However, it’s really easy to find – just open your mobile browser and navigate to m.bath.ac.uk .

Tell us what you think of our new site by leaving feedback. You can do this by clicking the link on our mobile homepage. We’d be very grateful!

If you want to find out more about our work with mobile devices, keep an eye on our blog. We’ll be posting regularly about new features as they become available.