Improving the Application and Inquiry Experience
The Admissions office has been working on a new software product that streamlines the way the University serves prospective students. The product changes the way students inquire and apply via the website, and the implementation required substantial changes to the website, and some design work on pages where students can apply, inquire and register for events. Now prospective students can check their application status and documentation online, register for events, and receive e-mail updates from Admissions.
Enhancing the Quality and Quantity of Information About Our Faculty
There has been much progress on enhancing the information available about our faculty. This information will help inform prospective parents and students about the outstanding professors here, and hopefully inform their decision process when thinking about UB.
We continue building out faculty information pages throughout the website and thank those already involved in the process. If you are a full-time faculty member and have yet to submit your profile, you can do so here.
Academic Web Review Meetings
Many of the updates that have been suggested over the course of full-day meetings with Academic schools/institutes have been implemented, and we are now looking to take suggestions for the fall semester. In the Deans’ Council meeting last spring, it was agreed that regular meetings to discuss the website should become part of the institutional schedule. Moving forward, the Web Office will provide opportunities for regular Academic Web Review meetings.
Please contact me to schedule a meeting for the fall if desired. Of course, in addition to the review meetings I am always available to meet on an ad hoc basis with Academic Web Editors and Approvers to discuss academic web concerns.
Training
In departmental web update trainings, 50+ cross-departmental Web Editors have been trained on how to submit edits for approval and publishing on the website. If you are the editor or approver for your department and still need training please contact me.
New Sites Recently Launched
In coordination with many departments, the following is a short list of some of the major sites that have been added to Bridgeport.edu recently:
· Family
· Revamped the International Student Services Site
· Launched MOX mobile portal landing pages
Social Networking
The Web Office continues to support and coordinate the university’s efforts in social media. Recently we assisted International Student Services in setting up and promoting a International Student Services Facebook presence, which now has over 160 fans and growing. I’ve been working with departments to assist them in their social media efforts and can provide guidance and tools to help manage their social media presences. In the next few months, I will be working with Campus Activities to promote UB in foursquare, which will highlight events and locations around campus.
SEO
A Search Engine Optimization campaign to address key issues was undertaken last fall. We have seen positive gains in the placement on search engines and engage in efforts to continually monitor the website.
Corporate Landing Pages
We continue to build out pages for corporations that have agreements with UB to promote our education to their employees. Each page is customized for each corporation.
Analytics and Tracking Improvements
As a part of the overall redesign project, analyzing reliable and specific measurement is an important step in understanding how visitors interact with our website. This semester the Web Office will be continuing work in outlining important conversion points and tracking processes for the new website.
IDEAL Banner Campaign
We've been working to experiment in new ways to drive traffic to our programs, and one of those ways is a banner campaign. During the month of May, web adspace ran on the well-known career site, CareerBuilder. I had the opportunity to work with IDEAL on the banner campaign, which included designing the banners and working with Admissions and our vendor, creating a new inquiry form to handle all inquiries from the campaign.
Necessary Voices Lecture Series Videos
Rounding out last semester I posted the final lecture series video for the successful Necessary Voices series. View the videos here.
Keeping the Site Current
With so much happening on campus, the amount of effort in keeping the site up to date is tremendous, and the entire campus is involved in the process.
It is a testament to the great faculty and staff at UB that we can continue to refresh and make sure that vital content is added into the site on a regular basis. Without this ongoing effort, the newly redesigned site would transform from engaging, fresh, and current to old, flat and stale.
Here are some notable stats that I found interesting that illustrate just how busy a spring semester we had creating, updating, and keeping current the UB website:
• 189 new pages since March 3, 2011 on average about 3 per day
• 351 pages updated since March 3, 2011, on average about 6 pages per day
• 56 events posted since March 3, 2011, on average about 1 new event a day
Some of those many edits included the following:
• Added International College fact sheets
• Graduate Admissions content updates
• Adjusted links to UB Online schedule to improve visibility
• Edited Professional Seminars pages to prepare for this summer's programs
• Human Resources job postings
• Added event listings for all spring and fall 2011 events
• Made substantial edits to all of the Financial Aid sections of the site to keep current
• Posted CELT calendars
• Posted International Student Services Newsletters
• Overhauled entire OPT section for International Student Services website
• Added Spanish and Portuguese to the language options offered under International Admissions
• Revamped Student Support Services website
• Began Drafting a new Health Sciences Continuing Education section
• Added the ELI brochure to the ELI website, updated costs
• Updated School of Business site and added new sections to MBA website
• Edited Orientation pages
• Edited Accepted Students pages
• Edited the Key to UB document and provided team site for cross-departmental update process
• Posted all Commencement information, created new Commencement page
• Posted the new SGA constitution
• Revamped Chiropractic Continuing Education pages
• Added the CAS Application service to Chiropractic area under Health Sciences Admissions
• Posted upcoming continuing education seminars for Dental Hygiene and Chiropractic
• Updated the Academic calendar
• Created an Events RSS feed for use on the portal and for visitors of the site
• Updated News RSS feed to make it compliant with standards
• Posted announcements and events to the myUB portal
• Posted newest Knightlines to Alumni site
• Added additional videos, new videos include:
Residence Life
Music Program
