Website Stakeholders

Offering a consistent look and feel on the Web at a big university is a challenge. When implementing a content management system across hundreds of units or departments isn’t an option – for budget reason, some institutions have to adopt a different approach.

At the University of Alabama, the central web communications team includes only 4 people. That’s why Andy Rainey, director of Web Communications, is a big proponent of the “teach-them-how-to-fish” approach. His team has always designed and published web resources to help the larger university community get up to speed with their web presence, using more recently WordPress as their web platform of choice.

Last April they launched 3 branded WordPress themes to create the winning combo of ease of use with WordPress and consistency with a unique web template. With the release earlier this summer of WP 3.0, UA Web Communication Team was able to merge the 3 themes into a single one including some very powerful customization options to accommodate the special needs of different units on campus.

Here’s a regular second-level page, the Admissions web page on the main website:

And, here are a few screenshots of the WP 3.0 template:

I asked Andy Rainey, director of Web Communications at the University of Alabama, to answer a few questions about this project.

1) Did you develop the WP theme in-house? Who did it?

The theme was developed in-house by our Web Communications team, led by developer Matthew Muro. Matthew previously built and released our first UA-branded WordPress themes earlier this spring, but as the new WP 3.0 version emerged, he took the opportunity to significantly improve the functionality and flexibility of the themes. The 3.0 theme utilizes a custom admin panel that provides control of major design aspects of a site without requiring customization of the code itself. He was also able to create a single, united theme based on our UA Web Templates that provided a number of different layout and configuration options, instead of requiring users to choose which theme they wanted up front. In this way, we hope the theme becomes more fluid and flexible to current and future needs.

2) How did your campus community react to the launch of the WP themes?

The feedback we have received has been very positive. In fact, the provision of this theme is in large part the result of listening to much discussion among campus webmasters and functional users. The need for a “plug-and-play” solution for campus web sites has been the most significant need we’ve heard in the past few years, and while any solution requires some degree of effort and customization to be successful, we feel the theme is a great resource for units lacking full-time web expertise or resources to obtain that expertise to be able to easily build an accessible, usable, effective and institutionally-branded web site. The theme is provided as a true open-source resource, with no stipulations other than it must be used for an official or unofficial University of Alabama web site only, and that its usage must not violate general UA web policies. Significant time and energy has gone into creating tutorials and resources on our Web Guide site that make customizing the theme to meet specific needs a simpler process.

3) Do you provide hosting for their WP install? Do you offer to run their website from your own WP 3.0 install?

Hosting for WordPress web sites is available through the campus’s office of information technology, and they’re working to further streamline the process to improve how these sites are deployed and managed. As WP 3.0′s code base is now merged with WordPress MU, it should become easier and more efficient to roll out new WordPress web sites in a more scalable and repeatable manner going forward.

4) Any good examples of implemented WP UA websites to share?

This theme was just released a few weeks ago, so really it’s just getting started. But we have seen great results with using WordPress for institutional web sites, which informed our decision to offer WordPress themes. Our news center suite (UA news , Dialog – our faculty and staff newsletter and and our magazine Research) are custom WordPress sites, and by using WordPress we’ve been able to empower content providers to manage these sites almost exclusively. And we previously tested the first version of our UA WordPress themes with our own Editorial Style Manual as a proof-of-concept.
There are many campus web sites already using WordPress, so this new theme provides additional options for those sites to utilize institutional resources and offers others the ability to have that institutional brand. We’re treating this theme as one of our primary offerings to campus at large and we will continue to invest our time and resources to improving the themes and the resources available to those who wish to use them, with the goal of significantly improving the performance, consistency and effectiveness of our overall campus web presence through the most efficient means possible.

I started to write about the mobile web in higher education about a year ago (The ABC of Mobile Marketing for my University Business column), but I know I’ll be writing more and more about it in the coming months (and not because of the August 4 “Going Mobile” webinar series by Higher Ed Experts).

You might have noticed yourself that several sessions and workshops about the topic have been popping up this year at higher ed conferences. So, it sounds like we have finally passed the very-early-adopter phase with more and more institutions starting to cater to their mobile web users.

If you still need to sell the mobile web to your boss, I’ve gathered some fresh data from two different surveys to help you build your case.

I’ve already shared some of the data included in the E-Expectations Report published last week, but I’d like to bring to your attention a single data point from this survey:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report about Mobile Access two weeks ago (July 7, 2010) with really up-to-date results as the survey was done by phone (landlines and cell phones) between April 29 and May 30, 2010.

You can download the 25-page PDF report for free, but here are the most useful data points for marketers and web professionals in higher education.

• 9 in 10 young adults aged 18-29 own a cell phone (compared to 82% for all adults)
• 19% use a cell phone only to go mobile, 84% use a laptop AND a cell phone
• 55% of all cell phone owners go online at least every day
• 52% of 18-29 year olds and 52% of college grads of any age go online with their phone several times a day
• 65% of 18-29 year old cell phone owners access the internet with their phone
• 19% of 18-29 year old cell phone owners have made a charitable donation by text (compared to 10% for 30-49 year old users) – Could it be the solution to get young alums in the habit of giving to their alma mater?
• Young adults are more likely than older users to engage in mobile data applications as shown in the chart from the Pew Internet and American Life Project below.

As you can see, the mobile web channel is definitely getting a fair share of attention and action from students and young alums.

While several institutions have chosen to outsource the development of their mobile websites, you don’t have to go this route thank to the higher ed open source platform based on MIT Mobile and further developed by Dave Olsen from West Virginia University.

If you want to get started more smoothly, you should definitely register for Going Mobile: How to develop the mobile website of your institution with Mobile OSP.

As you’ve probably noticed, online videos are used more and more by universities and colleges trying to reach (and entertain) prospective students and their parents.
According to a report released last Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, The State of Online Video, 69% of online adults now watch videos online.

The use of musical videos is more recent and seems to have been inspired by a few very successful lipdubs as well as the phenomenal success of the TV show Glee. Yale’s video comes to mind, but it hasn’t been the only one.

I posted about Delaware, The Musical when it was still a project. Since my last post the video has been produced, published and very well received.
Delaware: The MUSICAL

Karlyn Morrissette gave more details on Eduguru about the video as she worked on the larger project with her company, Fire Engine RED.

A few weeks ago I interviewed via email Avi Amon, an admissions counselor at UD and the producer of the video about the kind of return the video had for the University of Delaware. His boss, Amy Greenwald-Foley, also helped address some of my questions. Since this interview was done, Avi published another video, the Making of Delaware, the Musical, that gives an idea of what happened behind the scene.

1) According to YouTube Insights for this video, it is more with young and less young female viewers? Do you know why?

My guess is simply because of the genre, and at the risk of sounding vain, the fact that Drew and I are younger, male professionals. I mean, look at his smile! Those stats also only cover registered YouTube visitors, so it doesn’t paint a complete picture.

2) Why have you close the comments?

I turned off the comments for a number of reasons. First, our Inbox was flooded and we simply could handle the load. The second reason (and this is something I picked up from Yale’s video) is to avoid abuse by Internet “trolls” just looking to be negative without a purpose. Yes, that’s a risk you take by putting something on the Internet, but we didn’t want this project, something that so many students/etc worked on for so long, to be tainted with that negative energy. We tracked “comments” through other venues, such as Facebook and Twitter. The response from students, alumni, etc, has been overwhelmingly positive.

3) In the first phase of this project, prospective students were asked to tell you what they wanted to see in this video? Can you give us a few examples of their suggestions that ended up in the video?

We were thrilled by the response from HS sophomores & juniors in our search tapes. Since no one had done this sort of thing before, we weren’t quite sure if anyone would respond and, if so, what they might suggest. Most wanted to see or hear something about traditions. Since so many of UD’s revolve around The Green, we knew that’s where the story would need finish. We also answered questions about the names of our colleges and the number of majors offered. Of course, every student who submitted a photograph of him- or herself, got a screen credit at the end of the video. And we have plans to produce a summer short on discovering UD, with Drew and myself answering many of the questions submitted by our search respondents. We won’t be able to show all requests — such as a man on the moon with a monkey — but we’ll try to honor many.

4) Now that this is done, do you have an idea of the return on investment of this video? Are the results worth the time and budget spent on this project?

Since we produced the entire video in-house, we were able to work with a more modest budget. It’s great when you have so much talent at your disposal! It’s simply not possible to quantify an exact return on investment but I can say this:

• We garnered press in the The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Philadelphia NPR station, WHY, and several other news outlets and have surpassed 35,000 hits (Note from Karine: 41 029 at the time of this writing) on YouTube, so our circulation has been tremendous.
• We purchased 50,000 fewer search names this year but have the same number of search respondents as last year.
• Our visit numbers among prospective students and their families are now at a record high.
• We brought together an entire University community — current students, administrators, faculty, alumni, and prospective students — in a way that has never been done before.
• And, we learned many things producing this video. Lessons that we hope to carry forward with more videos and experiments in social media.

“Delaware the Musical” was absolutely worth our time and money.

The only things we had to pay for was camera and studio time with our own University Media Services — run by many of our own Alumni.

All the students (graphic design, actors, musicians, dancers, camera crews, etc), the choreographer (an alumna), my own orchestration and planning, the physical spaces we filmed in, were all volunteered or donated. If you include the time outside of work that was needed, the “cost” would be much higher, but this is something we wanted to do so I’m discounting it.

Whether you’re working on a big redesign project or have embraced a more iterative redesign approach, usability testing should be considered as one of your web work cornerstones.

I’m sure you’ve already read or heard that testing with only 5 users will provide you great insights to improve the usability of your website (Gosh, I even wrote a post about a conference session about this — 5 years ago ;-). That’s why there is no reason for skipping Do-It-Yourself usability tests.

In a column about the topic published on May 24, 2010, usability expert Jakob Nielsen explains that it’s a good idea to invite all the web team members as well as some executives to observe your usability tests.

Nielsen lists 5 benefits to these usability testing sessions attended by the web team at large:

“Credibility. Because they’ve seen how you derive insights, they’ll believe your usability findings and reports (vs. thinking you made them up or are just offering your personal opinions or preferences).

Fewer design mistakes. When designers and developers have seen their actual customers, they’re less likely to go overboard with design ideas that aren’t going to work for users. The better the raw UI, the fewer fixes will be needed after the next round of user testing.”

Nielsen adds that executives who attend these sessions are “more likely to prioritize user experience after experiencing users” – including in their budget allocations.

If you’d love to show usability testing to your boss or train your team members to run these tests at your institution, you should definitely consider signing up for Usability Testing 360 Webinars, scheduled on June 16 & 17 (and if you have the chance to have a dedicated usability specialist in your team, Nielsen’s workshops are also great to perfect your team member skills).

Led by Chas Grundy from the University of Notre Dame, this 2-webinar series includes a first session that will tell you all you need to know to run your own usability tests and a second session that will show you live usability tests at different stages of a web design project.

This second session will be perfect to demonstrate the power of usability testing to your website stakeholders, boss or VP.

Registration for this 2-webinar series are open until June 7, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/usability360
The $300 registration fee includes a 1-year access to the recordings in case some of your team members can’t make it the days of the live sessions.

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.