Website Stakeholders

A few weeks before the “That’s I chose Yale” video was released, two admissions officers from the University of Delaware launched another musical into the wild, Reading Season.

Their video struck a chord in admissions offices across the country even though it was just a side project for both admissions officers.

When I interviewed Avi Amon about his video back in December, he hinted that there might be other videos created as part of a recruitment push at the University of Delaware.

Avi contacted me a few days ago to let me know about his new project: creating a full-length admissions video including requests and even photos from students, a video that will be produced based on suggestions from prospective students.

What a great idea!

To get some interest in this project, the admissions office created another tongue-in-cheek video and included it in the email sent to 200,000 prospective students earlier this month.

Here’s this call-to-action video:

Students were asked to submit an online form including basic contact information as well as what they would like to see in the video. They can also challenge the admission office to include some unusual elements in the video.

So, how has been the response so far?

More than 1,400 views on YouTube and some good feedback from the target audience according to Avi Amon:

So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Students have been excited that we are reaching out to them! Responses vary from the basic (I’d like to see the engineering building) to the more thought-provoking. (how will I know that UD is a good fit for me?).

I’ll make sure to keep you updated about this project.
In the meantime, tell what you think by posting a comment!

Unless you’ve been really, really busy (and away from your computer, iPhone or iPad – wait that one isn’t out there yet ;-), you’ve already heard about Yale’s admissions video: “That’s why I chose Yale,” a 16-minute tongue-in-cheek musical, highly produced but all done by students or recent alums.

Picked up by the New York Times, the Washington Post and other big names in media, the video has gone viral on YouTube (more than 300,000 views at the time of this writing) – and has resulted in many high praises as well as angry comments on different blogs and listservs.

Here’s the video in case you didn’t get a chance to watch it yet:

Brian Niles from TargetX – who is very well connected in the admissions world – managed to contact Andrew Johnson, senior assistant director of undergraduate admissions who was behind this production, and got him to sit in front of a web camera for a 20-minute discussion about the video.

No time to watch the interview now?
Here are my notes:

• The video wasn’t designed to be put online initially, but to be used as a fun introduction before the traditional information session and the campus tour. Johnson explained that it was meant to be used as one component of a campus visit and definitely not as part of a new branding campaign. However, it was decided at some point to put it online.
• They decided to do the video in-house with students after requesting some bids from video production companies. Johnson said it was done with a little amount of money – about 10% of what professional companies were asking for this type of video. When prompted to give a dollar amount for the video budget, Johnson explained that it had not been tallied up yet as the expenses were on several admissions officers’ credit cards (Really? Wow).
• The video took 10 days to film and several to edit. The video was then reviewed in house to make sure it was vetted.
• The musical format was chosen to showcase a more fun yet accurate side of Yale. The student film maker, Ethan Kuperberg, had just completed a musical when he was asked to do this project. Johnson managed the project, but also wrote the music.

Make sure you watch this great video interview by Target X to learn more as I’ve just highlighted the most important points. And, again kudos to Brian for getting us more info on this unusual video.

Care to tell us what YOU think about the Yale video? Post a comment!

More than 500 redesigned were submitted to eduStyle as redesigns last year.

That’s what discovered Stewart Foss, the driving force behind this web design gallery dedicated to higher ed websites, as he was working on his next webinar about higher ed redesign trends scheduled on February 16, 2010 (Registration is open until February 8, but if you sign up before February 2nd for the Web Redesign Boot Camp – you’ll get access to 4 extra webinars about web redesign at no extra cost).

eduStyle || Labs – Top Sites by Votes

With things changing so much – and fast -on the Web (social media, mobile Web, etc.), I’m wondering how many web redesign projects are under way or about to start in higher ed – and what the main reasons to redesign are in 2010.

If you work on a redesign (or are planning to), tell us why you redesign and when you plan to launch the new version of your website (even if it’s in several months) by posting a comment.

I’ve mentioned this series back in December, but it’s time for a reminder packaged with a great offer if you move quickly – as it will be available to a limited number of registered institutions.

Web Redesign Boot Camp is a 3-webinar series scheduled on February 16, 17 and 18.

It will provide you with some great insights, tips and lessons learned to help you (and your stakeholders) get ready for your next redesign.

Featuring Stewart Foss from eduStyle, Chas Grundy from Notre Dame and Ben Riseling from Duke University, this series will give you what you need to know before jumping into a redesign project:

Top trends in higher ed redesigned websites
Stewart Foss, Founder of EduStyle and co-author of The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher Ed Homepage Design, will present the latest trends in higher ed web design identified among the best redesigned websites (homepage, departmental, admissions, etc.) in 2009.

How to survive a Website Redesign & a CMS Implementation
Ben Riseling, Manager of Web Operations for the Office of News & Communications at Duke University, will make sure your survive your next website redesign coupled with a CMS implementation. He will share the best tips and tricks he acquired during the 9-month process preceding the launch of the new duke.edu powered by the open source CMS, Drupal, in October 2009.

Recipe for Successful Web Redesigns
Chas Grundy, Director of Interactive Marketing for AgencyND – a marketing agency within the University of Notre Dame, will explain how his team manages website redesigns for different departments and offices as well as for the university homepage. He will share best practices and lessons learned as well as his own recipe for sucessful web redesigns and happy stakeholders.

Find out more about this series at www.higheredexperts.com/redesignbootcamp.

If you register for Web Redesign Boot Camp by February 2nd, 2010 (the registration deadline is February 8, 2010), you’ll get free access to Web Redesign Academy, a collection of 4 other recorded webinars about the topic, until May 31st, 2010.

The Web Redesign Academy suite includes the following webinars:

How to make the case and prepare your next redesign
(presented on February 20, 2008)
Seth Meranda, Assistant Director for Interactive Media at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will show you how to build your case with web stats, surveys and research for your next redesign. After this webinar, you will be better prepared to start to redesign, sell the project to your main stakeholders or even get the budget you need.

How to survive a website redesign
(presented on February 21, 2008)
Nancy Prater, Ball State University Web Coordinator will help you make sure your survive your next website redesign by sharing the best tips and tricks she acquired during the 18-month process preceding the launch of the new bsu.edu in late October 2007.

Website Redesign & CMS Implementation: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(presented on April 22, 2009)
Tonya Price, Director, Marketing and Web Operations at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will share what went bad in WPI redesign coupled with a CMS implementation and how her team managed to overcome these challenges. She will also present her recipe to prepare, manage and survive any big website redesign project that will come your way.

Web Redesign on a dime in 10 steps
(presented on April 23, 2009)
Nick DeNardis, Associate Director of Web Communications at Wayne State University and Founder of the video blog EDU Checkup, will explain how his team managed to complete 25 successful website redesigns for different departments and offices. He will share best practices and lessons learned as well as his 10 steps plan to redesign a small website on a dime.

So, if you want to get 7 webinars for the price of 3, make sure you register for Web Redesign Boot Camp before February 2nd, 2010.

As I mentioned at the top of this blog post, this is a limited offer only available to a limited number of registered institutions.

It looks like lip synching is the new black in college online videos (or is it that I really like lipdubs and feel compelled to post about any new one I stumbled upon?)

I watch this very well produced online video after Dale Keiger, Associate editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine, posted about it on the CUE listserv.

Published on YouTube on December 21st, 2009, it has more than 22,000 views at the time of this writing.

It’s a really great high-energy-feel-good video including an original soundtrack recorded by students and adapted from the song “I Thank You” written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter as well as some dancing and much more.

So, please take 3 minutes and a half to watch this video.

Targeted to donors, this video was created and produced by Jay Corey, director of Video Strategy at Johns Hopkins University. As soon as I finished watching his video, I emailed him to ask a few questions about what it took to produce these 3 and half minutes of great online video.

1) How long did it take to write, direct and produce this video?

The ideal situation would have been to have a least 6 months to work on this piece. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the
turn-around time to complete this video was tight. The idea of Johns Hopkins University doing an end-of-year video was first introduced at the end of October 09. The only guidance that came with the idea was that the video should be fun to watch and have a “thank you” theme.

From concept to finished produced piece it took about 5 weeks. I started with the music, first by re-working the lyrics to make them more academic themed and then recording a basic rhythm track with guitar, drums, bass and a scratch vocal with my audio production partner David Schmelick. I then added keyboards, a horn section featuring students from the Peabody Institute and finally polished vocals provided by the Johns Hopkins acapella group Octopodes.

From there it was just a matter of logistics. I worked with several driven colleagues who worked tirelessly to keep me running from place to place, rapidly taping and cajoling, for the most part non-dancers and non-singers to perform as if they were.

2) This video uses the technique of the lipdub, a genre recently made popular by students lip synching while showcasing their campus. Why did you choose this technique?

As far as using a lip dub / lip synching technique, once we decided to make a music video, I don’t know of another way to do it. I chose the Sam and Dave tune I Thank You because it obviously fit the theme and because an R&B song would have relevance to largest group of viewers/listeners.

3) How did you secure the rights to use the song? Was it a long process?

In securing the music rights my colleague Glenn Simmons did an amazing job. This process can often be a difficult and lengthy one. By working through a music agent he was able to negotiate a workable rate and finalize a contract with the publishers in less than 2 weeks. Usage rates are fluid and vary greatly depending on the popularity of the song, how it will be used, where it will be seen, etc.

Wow, I haven’t blogged for the past 2 weeks…

Anyway, I just want to make a quick post to thank you all the 559 persons who took the Higher Ed Experts/eduStyle/Uwebd/Collegewebeditor.com Survey and let you know that the official list of the 14 winners of the prize drawing is now available on Higher Ed Experts’ new website.

Higher Ed Experts

You might have already seen it if you follow me on Twitter or read my email newsletter, but the new Higher Ed Experts’ website is what kept me from this blog, my Twitter account and sometimes even my email box for the past few weeks.

If you haven’t visited it yet, go check it out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment here or there.

Have you watched “Reading Season, The Musical” yet?

This YouTube video was brought to my attention yesterday over Twitter via a quick post from TargetX Jeff Kallay.

As you’ve probably noticed, I always try to keep an eye on online videos produced in higher ed.
So, I watched it and immediately felt compelled to share it over Twitter:

Twitter / karinejoly: Wow, Udel has some real talent in the Admissions Office

This morning, I even got an email from a reader of the Higher Ed Experts newsletter who felt the same way and shared the link to this video.

It’s fun, under-5-minute long and is a great behind-the-scene look at the work done in an Admissions office at this time of the year – which is probably why it’s resonating so much within the community with more than 3,000 views on YouTube at the time of this writing.

That’s why I emailed Avi Amon, the UDel Admissions Counselor behind this video to ask a few questions about it.

1) Why did you decide to create this video? What is its target audience?

It’s an idea I’ve been toying around with for awhile, honestly. It’s always been a dream of mine to pursue composition full-time and/or write musical theater. I’m currently taking composition classes at Delaware in addition to working full time. I figured that creating this video was a perfect way to combine these segments of my life! My colleage and co-lyricist/performer, Drew, was an immeasurable help during the whole process.

While the primary target audience is definitely other college admissions counselors and high school guidance counselors, I think the humor and concept is broadly appealing. Students and parents have also left us very wonderful comments!

2) How did you produce it? How long did it take?

We actually have quite a bit of A/V equipment in our office for other marketing purposes. We’re in the process of making videos for all of our majors on campus to better educate and engage prospective (and undecided) students. I’ve learned that the key to good video is good audio, so we took care of that in my roommate’s mini-recording studio (which happens to be in our living room!) The video was shot on one of the office’s HD cameras and we edited it all down using Final Cut Pro at the University of Delaware Library. It took a weekend to plan, shoot, edit, and execute.

3) Was it a side project or something meant to be part of UDel recruitment strategy?

Definitely a side project. Drew and I had to come up with a short activity for our annual staff retreat and this is what happened! That being said, if the project continues – which I plan on – and other videos are made, it could definitely be used as a part of a grander University of Delaware recruitment push.

4) What kind of feedback did you get so far?

People have been LOVING it! And not just on campus either. It’s received some national attention from NACAC, TargetX, and plenty of other admissions offices around the country. We’re at 3000 hits and it’s only been 3 days since we published it!

I also think that the recent success of Glee (one of my favorite shows on TV) on FOX has contributed to our viewership. America is a very ‘musical’ place right now so it seems like the right climate for a project like this.

It looks like the incredible success of the lipdub produced by students from UQAM in Montreal, QC (more than 2.5 million views as of this writing) has pushed some institutions in the US to finally join the university lipdub movement.

Texas State University in San Marcos did its lipdub on November 8th in the LBJ Students Center with about 30 students. Lisa Duncan, University Marketing videographer was behind the camera.

Twitter / kymfox: @TXSt students are doing a lipdub

The lipdub is available on Vimeo:

Texas State University – San Marcos Lipdub

There is also an interesting making of produced by the University Star, the student newspaper, on YouTube:

At the other side of the country, in Boston, Suffolk University students got their lipdub done on November 11th with about 50 of them and the help of the university communications office. They used a mash-up of songs from Queen for the music – a first for University lipdubs.

Jessica Krywosa, director of Web Communications at Suffolk, shared the link to this lipdub yesterday over Twitter and was kind enough to answer a few questions about it via email.

Twitter / Jessica Krywosa: Suffolk University Lip Dub …

1) How did the Office of University Communications work with student organizations? Did the students have full creative control?

We reached out through the student activities office on campus who worked with student groups to find interested parties. We also reached out via Facebook and Twitter to any student on campus. There was combined control: students had input on everything from the song chosen to the choreography and characters.

2) How many students took part in the lipdub and how long did the project take?
50 students and staff members participated. It took 6 weeks of work and 4 hours of work. It was shot on November 11th in three takes.

3) Why did the Office of University Communications decide to support the project and host it on its YouTube channel – which is a first?

The Comm office is the centralized office for all university social media efforts. We drive the strategy for the university brand in all instances, including online. The Comm office created an integrated social media strategy and therefore uses ‘their’ channels as the ‘Official University’ channels. We do not own the channel from an office standpoint but as a repository for collaboration: we channel all university video content there for greater reach. Same for our Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts, instead of segmenting it as ‘our’ office channel, we created it for everyone to supply content to and create a community around.

4) What is your take on the issue of copyright for the music? Is it the reason why you used a “mash-up”?

What we produced is a mash-up and we hope that it produces a greater interest in Queen and in Suffolk University but we certainly understand the limitations of the digital millennium copyright act. We could be asked to remove it. We aren’t charging for this content or using it for commercial purposes. As with all of the university lip dubs, they used copyrighted music (Black Eyed Peas, Thriller, etc) and are still on YouTube today.

While doing my research yesterday on YouTube, I stumbled upon the following 4 new university lipdubs of interest produced in the past few weeks in Japan (as an homage to the one done by UQAM students), in Quebec and in South Africa.

After Bates College last month, Duke University unveiled its new homepage on October 1st.

The last design was done in 2006 and had definitely a Google-ish kind of look.

Duke Homepage (2006)

With the new design Duke’s homepage look and feel is less unique, but it is definitely more user- and content-friendly. Stories – told through text, photos and videos – are a big part of this new homepage (like for Bates).

Home | Duke University (2009)

What is also great about this new homepage is that it is running on the open source CMS, Drupal and was mostly developed internally. Ben Riseling from the Office of News and Communication, Samantha Earp from the Office of IT and Blyth Morrell of Duke Web Services oversaw the technical development and deployment of the new site.

You can read more about the redesign in the press release about the redesign launch or the blog set up to keep the community informed about this project.

Ben Riseling was kind enough to answer the few questions I had about the redesign.

1) How long did the whole process took and how did you approach this redesign?
The whole process, from strategy/planning to design to build and launch took 9 months. Duke’s new VP for Public Affairs, Michael Schoenfeld, and also new Director for Brand Strategy, Denise Haviland, set the initial goal that the new site should visually align itself with the branding standards set by our undergraduate admissions viewbooks. Mike also made very clear that we needed to deliver dynamic content, utilizing our many news and event feeds effectively while also showcasing our growing number of videos.

We knew we wanted to utilize internal resources more than in the past and, from the start, involved our central IT office in all levels of planning. Aside from that we followed the traditional route of gathering strategic needs of the university, creating functional requirements and then making design and technical decisions to meet our needs. Despite this being one of the most complex sites we’ve built everything went so smoothly.

2) Duke has already done a lot of work with WordPress, why did you choose Drupal over WP for this implementation?

The main reason we chose Drupal is that it met the functional requirements for the proposed site perfectly. Drupal is also used widely across Duke and supported by our central IT office. Creating editorially rich sub pages was a key deliverable for the new site and Drupal gives you the flexibility to build pages as distinct sites. We knew we wanted to port over our existing Arts and Research sites as new secondary pages for Duke.edu and wanted to leave the door open to expand other sub pages in the future.

Wordpress has proven to be a very flexible platform for many types of sites but we had experienced some challenges in how that tool handles everything as a distinct piece of content with a unique url.
Customizing with new plugins then created challenges of backwards compatibility when addressing critical security patches. We still use Wordpress and Wordpress MU for many sites at Duke but, again, Drupal met both the functional and technical needs for this new site and has proven to be very easy to use.

3) Some of the main navigation tabs directs to differently branded websites, don’t you think it might be confusing for a first-time visitor?

Can you or should you develop a unified visual brand across every unit of a higher ed institution? We pursued the alternative track of duplicating content and links to services on Duke-branded sub pages and this was a resource drain while also not meeting the need of the first-time visitors who really just wanted to find a doctor or clinic or purchase basketball tickets.

The majority of first-time web traffic comes directly from search engines and visitors are entering sites from the basement window vs. the front door, right? Our user testing with incoming freshman has certainly confirmed this trend at Duke. One approach we’ve developed is our expandable brand bar which can be easily added to a site and unobtrusively lend that extension of Duke’s brand. It is safe to say that this is an ongoing conversation at Duke.

Brand Bar | Duke University Spotlights |

Brand Bar – screenshot

A frightening and yet interesting thing happened to Rachel Reuben from SUNY New Paltz a few days ago. The Facebook page she created 2 years ago for her university disappeared. Rachel tried everything to get the page back as she explained in a post she wrote last week:Feeling Naked: A Tale of the Disappearing Facebook Fan Page.

Long story short: Rachel finally got her page back but not the 5,000 fans – although Facebook has since let her know that they are investigating the issue.

SUNY New Paltz | Facebook

This incident and especially the lack of responsiveness from Facebook definitely put a whole new light on the current trend to rely more and more on Facebook for communications between an institution and its students…

About 3 months ago, I was interviewed for a CASE Currents’ article about private vs. public social networks for alums. While I didn’t mention the possibility of such an incident, I tried to offer a balanced view on the topic.

The article written by Caroline Mayer, The Inner Circle, has been published in the October issue (but is only accessible to CASE members), so I thought some of you might be interested in my answers to Mayer’s questions.

1. How vital is it for schools to set up an online community? Is it necessary and why/ why not? Are alumni associations without online communities missing out on something?

I wouldn’t say that it is vital for schools to *set up* online communities. However, I believe it is very important to join the conversation taking place on the Web (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn come to mind) as these online communities gather alumni who are definitely passionate about their alma mater and want to engage with their peers.

A few years ago, online community solutions were pitched by vendors as the next (natural) step to alumni associations relying at that time on more traditional print directories. These wall-garden solutions were sold as the ultimate tools to gather demographic data and contact information from alumni as they would allow them to connect with their old classmates. Unfortunately, most of the implementations of these solutions failed to engage enough alums to get the conversation rolling.

Today, while the tools have evolved and more and more associations have created groups or pages on popular social networking websites, it is easier to reach a critical mass. But, this doesn’t mean that it is easier to nurture and develop online communities. It takes a lot of work and time, and associations should only launch online communities if they are sure they can invest the efforts necessary to make them successful.

2. Does it make any difference how it’s done? i.e. should it be a private network where only alums can go making it feel special (and giving the schools the access to databases such as email addresses) or should it be where most of the alums hang out these days (Facebook, Linkedin).

As I said above, the problem with private communities is participation.

Alums (and other constituents) live busy lives offline and online. If schools can offer a unique and compelling experience to their community members, they can definitely be successful with a private social networking website. However, they should prepare to work harder and longer to attract and keep these members interested. If they are successful, their hard work will be paid by access to more contact information.

In the case of the most popular social networking websites, it takes less effort to attract community members as they are already using these websites to keep up with their friends and colleagues, but it doesn’t mean it’s easier to keep them interested. On these sites, alums have other options to spend their time – countless options just one link away within the same familiar interface.

3. Is a private network worth the costs? Do private networks provide anything that Facebook and other networks don’t?

First, a private network doesn’t always come with a big price tag. More and more institutions launch private social networking websites using the Ning platform – which is basically free or cost a minimal monthly fee if you wish to remove Google ads or/and use a branded web address.

Some vendor solutions do come at a hefty price though. While the user experience offered by most of these solutions is very similar to the ones provided at no cost, some vendors have set up interesting link between their community application and other CRM/ERM solutions, allowing to set up a system tracking community members from engagement on the social networking website to donations — or matriculation in the case of prospective students.

Private networks also provide a sense of greater privacy – especially when alum associations choose to keep them totally private (you have to be a member to read AND post). On Facebook, pages – used by institutions to manage their community – are indexed by Google. Any comments made on these pages by a fan – i.e. a member of a Facebook page – can be associated to its author right from a Google search.

4. Is a public network worth the lack of control?

It really comes down to participation and engagement. Is it worth losing a bit of control if people are actually going to come to your party? Probably. Moreover, if schools manage to create communities on Facebook or Linkedin and become their administrator, they actually keep some control – they can delete comments, prioritize the order in which some discussions are displayed, etc. However, there is always a risk of backlash if schools intervene too much and try to censor conversations.