Launching the new site structure
On Thursday 6 July, the digital communications team will be changing the structure of the University’s website. All academic information that currently resides under Study at St Andrews will be moved from there into the Subjects section.
The digital communications team will be migrating Entry requirements, Study options, Non-degree programmes and Postgraduate taught courses.
The new site structure for the Subjects section will go live on Thursday 6 July 2017.
What is changing
From Thursday 6 July, all academic information for prospective students (both undergraduates and postgraduates) will be found in the /subjects section of the website.
This includes:
- subject pages
- undergraduate programmes
- postgraduate taught programme
- study options
- non-degree course information.
Previously, postgraduate taught programmes sat within Study, but now it will be found within Subjects. Furthermore, an archive of programme information provided in recent years will also be held within this section.
The real change lies with the migration of entry requirements, study options and non-degree course information from Study to this section.
To ensure prospective students can find this information, there will be a new link to Subjects from the main navigation bar on the University’s homepage. Users will also be taken to /subjects by clicking on ‘Study at St Andrews’.
All non-academic information will move to a new Prospective students section in the near future.
Why are we doing this?
By compiling all the academic information for students in one section of the website, we hope to make organic searches and navigation easier for our users. We will be conducting usability testing after launch to test the usability of these pages, and will make improvements as necessary.
In addition, a key objective of the external facing website project is to have all prospective student information on one platform. Currently, this information is split across T4v7 and T4v8. This migration allows us to move more pages over to T4v8, thus helping complete this task.
Information for Staff
Content coordinators who currently edit content in Study which is being moved over to T4v8 (i.e. ‘Non-degree courses’, ‘Study options’, ‘Entry requirements’) will be offered training in T4v8 in order for you to maintain access to these pages.
There will be no changes to the processes regarding who can update content in these sections, and how these updates can be implemented.
After the initial launch, we will be making some changes to the content held in the ‘Entry requirements’ section, based on feedback from Admissions and ELT. This will happen over the summer.
Computing officers
Computing officers in Academic Schools will be offered training on how to update School subject pages in T4v8 shortly after launch.
Changing content on programme pages
The digital communications team are the only people who are able to make content amends to the undergraduate and postgraduate taught programme pages
To request a change to a undergraduate or postgraduate taught programme page, send an email to [email protected]. The digital communications team will make requested amends and get back to you within 48 hours.
Communication with prospective students
To ensure that prospective students are not affected by the website updates we will send out correspondence on the official University social media channels and the ‘Class of…’ Facebook pages.
Post-launch: notice any bugs or errors?
The new site structure for the Subjects section will go live on Thursday 6 July 2017.
For the first two weeks after launch, the digital communications team will provide a high-level of service, and any bugs or issues staff make us aware of (by emailing [email protected], or [email protected]) will be addressed immediately.
Following those initial two weeks after launch, any bugs, issues and content amend requests should be emailed to [email protected] and the digital communications team will work on these on a weekly basis.
If you want to stay up-to-date with any of the changes digicomms are making to the University’s website, you can sign up to the digital newsletter by emailing [email protected]. By signing up, you will also receive the agenda and meeting location of digital advisory board (DAB) meetings, which you are welcome to attend. You can also follow us on Twitter (@stadigitalcomms).