1 / 20

Institutional Research Websites: A Beginner’s Approach

Institutional Research Websites: A Beginner’s Approach. Presented by the following members of the Wake Forest University Office of Institutional Research: Adam Shick, Assistant Director of Institutional Research Sara Gravitt, Research Assistant Joel Campbell, Graduate Student Assistant

Pat_Xavi
Download Presentation

Institutional Research Websites: A Beginner’s Approach

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Institutional Research Websites: A Beginner’s Approach Presented by the following members of the Wake Forest University Office of Institutional Research: Adam Shick, Assistant Director of Institutional Research Sara Gravitt, Research Assistant Joel Campbell, Graduate Student Assistant North Carolina Association for Institutional Research Annual Conference, Elon University, March 26, 2003.

  2. Overview • Things to do before you start • Training • Available resources • Preparation and design • Creating and maintaining a web site • Six criteria • Miscellaneous suggestions • Demonstration of Wake Forest IR web site

  3. The Best Way to Create Your Site • Have someone with experience create the site • Campus Webmaster • Student worker • Pro: professional job • Con: dependent on creator if you are unable to take over the site after creation

  4. Doing It Yourself • Training • On campus staff training opportunities if available • Classes offered by your school • Attend web presentations at IR conferences

  5. Design It Before You Build It • Determine what you wish to accomplish with your web site • E-Fact Book • Common Data Set • Survey Results • Faculty Handbook (WFU) • Faculty Professional Activity forms (WFU)

  6. Design It Before You Build It (continued) • Look at other web sites (not just IR sites) for ideas • Make notes of likes and dislikes • What’s frustrating? • Broken links • Hard to find information • Getting lost • What causes a user to leave a site prematurely?

  7. Some Criteria • www.webbyawards.com (Presented by International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences) • Content • Structure and Navigation • Visual Design • Functionality • Interactivity • Overall Experience

  8. Criteria – Content • Content - all information provided on web site • Clear • Concise • Appropriately conveyed via electronic medium

  9. Criteria – Structure and Navigation • Structure and Navigation - framework, organization, prioritization, how user moves through site • Structure and Navigation should be transparent and intuitive • Should allow user to form a mental map of the site • Easy access to breadth and depth of site

  10. Criteria – Visual Design • Visual Design - appearance of site • Does not have to be cutting edge or flashy • Should be appropriate and relevant

  11. Criteria – Functionality • Does the site work well? • Are there any broken links? • Do graphics load properly? • Browser independent?

  12. Criteria – Interactivity • Interactivity - the way the site allows the user to do something, to participate • Input/output: searches, data mining, peer group analysis tools • User is no longer just “reading a magazine”

  13. Criteria – Overall Experience • Encompasses all above criteria • Does user come back, bookmark your page?

  14. Assessment of Site’s Usage • Hit Counters • Surprisingly little html code required • Free counters available on web • Avoid unsightly hit counters • Hide by using same color text as background • Counter from WFU IR site • <!--Counter initialized 2/12/2002--> </Font></Font><Font size="1" color="#FFFFFF"> <!--#exec cmd="/pub/gopher-data/cgi-bin/access_count ir02122002_factbook" --> </Font> <!-- FOOTER -->

  15. Alias • Your actual URL may be prohibitively long • Request Webmaster provide an “alias.” • www.wfu.edu/Administrative-Offices/Institutional-Research/index.html • www.wfu.edu/ir

  16. Templates • You probably don’t have to start from scratch • Templates • Available from your Webmaster? • Uniformity required with rest of campus? • “Copy” from another office on your campus • Ensure template is complete and correct before making other pages from it

  17. Scrolling • Minimize scrolling – especially on home page • Users are even less likely to scroll horizontally • Have the most important links visible when page opens

  18. Breadcrumbs • User should always be aware of where they are in the site • Example: Home > Fact Books > 2001-02 • Does not have to be “explicit” (WFU site)

  19. Institutional Research Websites: A Beginner’s Approach This presentation is available at: http://www.wfu.edu/administration/ir/docs/ncair2003.ppt

More Related