All department sites are finally NGWP.
Now, the sites which have migrated since the new year are in line to have a lot of restoration work done.
As mentioned before, these sites launched with only the highest priority pages and information, because we had to get moved. I do have complete backups of all websites, so rest assured that your content was not lost.
DEPT RESPONSIBILITY
Please understand that I am one person with many departments all needing updates at once. I also understand from your perspective: you need prospective students and possible new hires to see the best of what your department has to offer. I ask for only your highest priority needs to be shared with me first, so that I may find a way to balance serving all these departments at once.
NEW EXPECTATIONS
Website purpose has evolved since the older sites were created. Currently, the purpose of department websites is marketing, and our target audience is prospective students (and their parents). I realize there are other considerations to be made for attracting prospective new hires, as well as posting required information for accrediting bodies, grant funding entities, and so on. Please be sure to communicate those needs to me if I have missed anything, and I will do my best to publish in a timely manner.
The new sites are ideally to be kept lean, keeping in mind that the university now requires complete, page-by-page audits of migrated sites on an annual basis. Someone in your department will be delegated this responsibility at a later date.
CONSIDER INTERNAL CAPABILITIES
Current students and faculty can be served directly from your department via SharePoint, Canvas, and other internally managed platforms. These platforms are better document repositories than WordPress. For example, department policy documents could be managed within your department’s SharePoint, and I can publish a link to that directory in the site footer. Then you have internal control of the documents being shared, and no website updates will be needed when documents are changed, added, or deleted.
Contact Sarah Vetter, Webmaster for The College of Arts & Sciences
