Developing a Comprehensive University Web Strategy

Bob Durkee, March 29, 2001

Background

Like other universities, Princeton increasingly conducts its business and communicates with its campus community and its many publics through the World Wide Web.

Some of this interaction (with students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, potential applicants, the press, opinion leaders, and the general public) is intentional. In these cases we think carefully about the design and content of our messages, but we don't always design to the highest possible standards, keep our content current, or coordinate with others who are also communicating on behalf of the University. We also don't always think about how we are going to bring these audiences to our Web sites in the first place, or how we are going to differentiate among audiences when they get there.

One of our goals is to encourage members of the campus community and alumni to get in the habit of checking in electronically on a regular basis, knowing that the information they find will be fresh, useful, and engaging.

Another goal is to think more comprehensively about what outsiders may be seeking when they come to our sites so we can increase the likelihood that they will have positive and successful experiences. We know that many visitors now find information unavailable, outdated, or impossible to find. If our sites are poorly designed and difficult to navigate, they will convey a poor impression of the University's technological sophistication, its commitment to quality, and its interest in communicating with others.

Timing

This is an unusually opportune time to conduct a comprehensive review of the University's strategy for using the Web. Many offices and departments are conducting internal reviews and developing new or improved Web sites and services. The Alumni Council has recently launched an alumni portal and conversations about other portals are currently taking place. The Communications Office has received approval to appoint a web manager who will expand its capacity to make use of the Web and other offices are also enhancing their capacities. Questions recently have been raised at the Trustee level about the Admission Office's use of the Web. Janet Dickerson's office is developing online materials for entering students. Schools with which we compete are hiring staff and committing resources to improve their Web presence.

With Web technologies still evolving rapidly and with the imminent arrival of Betty Leydon as CIO and the imminent appointment (we hope) of a new President, any Web strategy probably has to be "provisional" for the foreseeable future. But that is no reason not to begin.

Proposal

A task force should be created with the goal of proposing a University Web strategy, or at least elements of a University Web strategy, by sometime over the summer.

Charge

The charge to the task force should include, at a minimum, the following:

1. Identify the audiences (internal and external) with which the University seeks to communicate and do business via the Web and elucidate both their goals and our goals for those interactions.

2. Compile an up-to-date inventory of the ways in which the University currently communicates and does business via the Web and an assessment of their effectiveness.

3. Propose a strategy for improved and expanded University use of the Web and policies, guidelines, and an appropriate administrative structure for carrying it out (including recommendations regarding staffing, reporting relationships, accountability, oversight, etc.). Answer the question: What do we want to be sure people can find and do via the Web and what kind of experience do we want them to have?

4. Specifically, consider:

a) the mission, design, and content of the University's home page, including all links directly from that page.

b) the design, content, and responsibility for maintaining pages that are one or two levels removed from the home page.

c) the possible development of rules, templates, or guidelines for other University-related pages, whether individual offices or programs should be required to maintain pages, and, if so, according to what standards.

d) the nature and number of University-related portal pages.

e) the Websites of offices that attract an especially large number of visitors (including Websites related to admission and financial aid).

f) relationships with pages commissioned by the University but maintained outside the University, such as the athletics home page.

g) possible e-commerce opportunities, implications, and concerns.

h) policies regarding Webcasting.

i) the status of efforts to develop a University-wide calendar.

5. The task force needs to be aware of uses of the Web for internal administrative purposes and for academic purposes, but those are not the principal areas on which it will focus.

Task Force

The task force would include the following:

Bob Durkee, vice president for public affairs, chair.
Lauren Robinson-Brown, director of communications.
Several representatives from CIT, including Betty Leydon when her schedule allows and other members of the senior management and Lorene Lavora as manager of Web services
Nancy Costa.
Van Williams, vice president for development, or his designee.
Kathy Taylor, director of the Alumni Council, or her designee.
Georgia Nugent, representing the provost's office and the ETC.
Kirk Alexander.
Representatives from the undergraduate and graduate admission offices.
Representatives from selected other offices and departments, perhaps including the vice president for campus life, the dean of the college, the registrar, the library, the treasurer's office, athletics, the Woodrow Wilson School, and others.
One or more faculty members, and possibly one or more students, either as task force members or as advisers to the task force.

Staff support would be provided by the office of communications and CIT. One or more students might be hired. Budgetary support will be necessary for meetings and possibly will be required for surveying, for engaging an outside consultant, for selected visits to other universities (or other entities), and/or for the development of prototypes or other materials.

Next Steps

Lauren has already attended an off-campus conference, on "Current Trends in Web Site Management," led by the vice president for new media at Lipman Hearne, a Chicago-based communications firm that consults widely with colleges and universities. She also represented Princeton at the first meeting of a new group, the Higher Education Web Content Council, that includes representatives from Brown, Cal Tech, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Rice, and Stanford. Among other topics, this meeting looked at the use of portals, the growth of wireless Web devices such as Palm Pilots, the role of the Web in admissions, and issues of organization and staffing. In addition, Lauren participated in a recent discussion of Web-related communications issues organized by the Association of American Universities.

These meetings provide a backdrop for our project. Further background will be provided in a half-day "orientation" program in May, coordinated by Lorene Lavora and her colleagues, with which the task force will begin its work.