Attendees: Terry Flannery, Barbara Emshwiller, Carl Levan, Sonja Walti, Kara Andrade, Joseph Mortati
History
- edu began with an app approach but was too difficult to maintain due to different devise and OS.
- Students were polled to get an idea of what content was most needed (e.g., bus schedules, library, menus).
- Currently, tablet + mobile = 25% of all traffic; expected to be 50% by end of 2016 but most content is not mobile-friendly.
- Most of our direct competitors are not yet mobile-friendly but we need to improve.
- Who has moved to mobile-friendly? jhu.edu is an example and it focuses on undergrad student prospects with the themes of “show don’t tell”, avoid clicks to content (use scroll instead), and simplify search.
- To give an idea of scale, AU’s CMS has 46,000 pages.
Goals
- Maintain page rankings for mobile use.
- Better user experience: audience-driven, focus on most visited pages and first landing page.
Current Status
Halfway through 3-month development of first 15 pages, which are enrollment-related.
January 2016 Master Template, then a 4-8 month implementation schedule.
Beyond 8 months, the following approach will be used:
- If content has not changed in <2 years, it’s not a candidate for conversion.
- AU Portal needs an infrastructure change (it’s based on Microsoft SharePoint).
Q+A
Q: Will AU provide an opportunity to choose ‘Do Not Track’ prior to beginning collection of data on visitors to AU websites? What about GPS or other location data?
A: While the site will not know who or where the user is, it will know if the device has been to the site before. However, there is no current plan for retargeting; if this were to change, it would require a change to the Privacy Statement.
Q: Have 3rd Party stakeholders (like Wiley) been involved in the planning?
A: They are not currently stakeholders; Terry Flannery to add to stakeholder list.