With the mid-way point of 2025 already receding distantly into the rear-view mirror, the time has come for a somewhat belated recap on the many projects that the Digital Development team has been working on in Quarter 2 (Q2) and beyond.
URL shortener – new version
Following on from the update in the previous Digital Development blog post, we were delighted to roll out a shiny new version of the URL shortener, which It’s faster, more efficient and more technically resilient than the previous iteration, and also provides a more effective basis for future development. To give a measure of speed and efficiency, the system can deal with over one million queries per minute, and can also restart itself without the need for developers to intervene, if a server restart is required.
Never ones to rest on our laurels, we have already implemented incremental improvements, such as allowing the system to function without live database access. This isn’t normally needed, but is a welcome extra fallback security measure, for the unlikely event that the live database of redirects goes offline. Watch this space for future improvements and developments!
SAMIS integration work
It’s difficult to over-state the importance of the University’s course information, which is managed in the central SAMIS system – the single source of truth for all student records information. Regular readers will record that our backend developer, Farooq, has been engaged in a long-standing project to integrate SAMIS with Typecase for Courses, the bespoke content management system which is used to manage course information on the University’s website.
This complex, ongoing, project reached a new milestone in Q2, when we went live with 2026 undergraduate courses – a large update that required a great degree of setup, integration and communication work behind the scenes.
Rails upgrade
The core infrastructure of the University’s website is based on Ruby on Rails, or Rails for short. Like all other pieces of modern technology, this complex, yet user-friendly web framework requires regular updates in order to ensure security and continuing functionality. One essential, but generally unsung task for our developers is to keep this system up to date. Q2 saw the bulk of a concerted project to upgrade rails, a process that was subsequently completed in Q3. You will be pleased to know that we are now fully up-to-date, with ongoing security patches continued to be applied as needed.
Typecase report updates
Avid readers of the previous blog will recall that we were delighted to welcome back Justin Keeville, a former staff developer and all-round worker of code magic, to work on some key improvements to our infrastructure. During Q2, he worked with great energy and efficiency to implement a series of reports in our content management system, Typecase, which allow the Content team much greater powers to find and update content that needs editing.
Digital Prospectus
One particularly exciting project that has heavily occupied the team in Q2 has been the set up and development of an entirely new product: a bespoke online prospectus, which provides content tailored to the user’s interests and requirements. This replaces the traditional, ink-and-paper prospectus, allowing us to convey content in a more accessible format, reducing carbon emissions associated with printing and transporting the physical prospectus. This project has involved most of the team, especially UX designer, Sam, front-end developer, Rebecca, and backend developer, Daniel – all of whom have been working energetically to create an attractive, accessible, and smooth online experience. More information to follow in the Q3 development review by which time the online perspective will have launched with PGT information.
Conferences
Although the vast majority of the teams time is spent beavering away on updates and exciting project work, it is always good to stay abreast of wider industry best practice and interact with others in the same industry. To this end, both front end developer Rebecca, and backend developer Daniel attended conferences in Q2 (Pixel Pioneers in Bristol, and Brighton Ruby) respectively, which were extremely useful and insightful, providing a wealth of new ideas.
Once again, it’s been an action-packed period of time, with all manner of technical innovations, interesting challenges and teamwork to find the best possible solutions to requirements. I am much looking forward to telling you how all of these things have developed in the next update!
Luke Roskilly, Head of Digital Development
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