Imagine you could stop designing, developing, editing or webmastering and take the time to talk about your website strategic goals with your director, VP, Dean or even with the President — of the University/College.
Imagine you could ask all your stakeholders about their high-level expectations for the website (we’re not talking about more photos, colors or links on the homepage, but something that could have its place in the institution’s strategic plan).
Imagine you could be handed a few high level institutional and departmental strategic goals and start to focus your efforts on how to reach these goals.
I bet the resulting strategic goals would read something like:
- Communicate and support the University’s/College’s mission and values expressed in a strong unified institutional image and a positive web experience.
- Recruit/attract students, faculty, staff, alums, donors, friends, supportive businesses, associations, government & media representatives
- Develop and nurture relationships with students, faculty, staff, alums, donors, friends, supportive businesses, associations, government & media representatives
I think these 3 goals cover all major audiences as well as any core business units: admissions, academics, registrar, business, institutional advancement, marketing, IT, etc.
What do YOU think?
I think that these goals are almost purely marketing goals. They say nothing about the primary mission of a university, which is teaching, research, and public service. I think most faculty would object these strategic goals are stunted.
I further think that most faculty would nod their heads and say well, what did you expect. Those IT types do not have a clue about the real purpose and function of a university.
BTW, a very odd behavior: typing the apostrophe causes the focus in my Firefox to jump down to Find. Weird.
-= Skip =-
I would argue that a school’s website plays little part in the teaching, research and public service activities of its faculty. It will showcase them, certainly, in an effort to reach the three goals stated above. I think you are confusing a university website’s purpose with the purpose of the university itself.
I came here through a Google search, hence the very late response, and thank the poster for some great ideas around developing a concise website strategy.