第一吃瓜网

第一吃瓜网University London's new website has been built to meet the needs of our target markets, designed for communication and collaboration. It is aligned with the University strategy, our technological capabilities and legal requirements.

Our strategic priority is to facilitate a user experience that develops a lasting digital relationship with our visitors – particularly prospective students – providing them with the information they need quickly, easily, and enjoyably. Our information must be presented intuitively to facilitate a successful user experience. We have conducted user analysis testing on prospective and current students to inform our decision making on navigation, design and user journeys.

Website governance group

The Website governance group is made up of the Digital Experience team to ensure the efficacy of our website and centralised governance for its ongoing maintenance and development.

In this instance, web governance refers to people, policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines that oversee our official website.

This is a work-in-progress document and is subject to change to meet the evolving web technical needs of the University.

To ensure we use the website effectively the following processes form web governance:

• Compliance and regulation.
• Quality assurance.

Digital Experience team

The Digital Experience team (in the Marketing, Communications and Recruitment directorate) will develop an annual framework of activity. We will coordinate the delivery of web projects and developments.

The team will meet to:

• Review completed work and projects, considering feedback and lessons learned.
• Consider new bugs and enhancement proposals and prioritise their importance based on the needs of the University's most important web audiences.
• Review the overall list of ongoing work and projects, and agree priority or re-prioritisation and resource allocation.
• Consider how to test and roll-out forthcoming releases.
• Propose and initiate new projects.
• Agree the programme of training activities.

Content committee

Content is king and our website is only as good as the content within it. The best designed website cannot hide poorly written content. Our site receives over six million sessions a year so it is essential that content owners keep their pages up-to-date, with appropriate calls to action, to meet the needs of their target markets.

To help content owners, the Digital Experience team will deliver Writing for the web workshops to promote good practice. Contact Organisational Development for details on "". There is also a with information on:

• Content making sense out of context.
• Writing style.
• Making your content more effective.
• Search engine optimisation (SEO).
• Images.

Other initiatives include:

• Online introductory and interactive training for our new CMS, Contensis, for site editors.
• Bespoke online training for specific areas of the site e.g. News and Events, Course pages etc.

Legal obligations

Online content must not include illegal, offensive, threatening or harassing material, or anything which can constitute a criminal offence (including breach of copyright). This applies to content across the University websites and social media accounts.

Project and personal websites

Project and personal websites must adhere with our guidelines in order to appear on the brunel.ac.uk domain. We / a relevant colleague will discuss non-compliant content with the owner in order to rectify the situation (see Non-compliance below).

Our brand

The Marketing, Communications and Recruitment directorate will advise on the implementation of our brand. They must be consulted for approval to any proposed deviations to digital visual standards. If you have any queries, contact support.

Digital Experience team 

The Digital Experience team manages the University web programme and provides advice, training and support on:

• Transition of current websites to meet University standards.
• Development of new websites.
• Use of the University technology infrastructure for web projects, including templates and the set-up of skeleton sites in Contensis.
• Project management of University-wide web applications.

Quality assurance

When a new site has been developed, the site owner should request a quality assurance review of the site from the Digital Experience team on channels before it goes live. This review will check the site for conformance to University standards and the accessibility requirements of UK legislation.

Guidelines and policies

Our guidelines and policies will ensure a consistent look and feel for our digital presence through standard processes, roles, responsibilities and practices. A unified site with consistent, on-brand messaging and positive user experience strengthens the University and supports our stakeholders.

All sites that fall within the brunel.ac.uk domain on Contensis are strategic assets that belong to the University, not individual departments. Departments are curators of their sites, experts in their content.

CMS roles and responsibilities

Departments (academic and professional) will need their staff to take responsibility and ownership for their content. They will help to ensure messages are clear and succinct.

Contributors are responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of their area of the website. Their responsibilities are:

1. Creating, submitting and ensuring all content, including text, images, videos and PDFs comply with the web governance guidelines.
2. Completing and remaining up-to-date on Contensis CMS usage and Writing for the web training.

Authorisers have ultimate responsibility for the accuracy of the content on their site. Their responsibilities are:

1. Approving/rejecting content submitted by contributors to go live on their web pages. Authorisers should respond to submissions within two working days.
2. Identifying contributors for their department and requesting permission for them.
3. Creating, submitting and ensuring all content, including text, images, videos and PDFs comply with the web governance guidelines.
4. Completing and remaining up-to-date on Contensis CMS usage and Writing for the web training.
5. Ensuring contributors complete and remain up-to-date with Contensis training.

Each department must have year-round contributors and authorisers identified and trained. Student workers, whether undergraduate, graduate or PhD, may support after they have completed the appropriate training.

Editor access can be requested by completing the training and form. Authorisers must decide who their contributors are before they are granted permissions.

Content

All content must adhere to our web guidelines. The Digital Experience team has full access to Contensis content, and has the authority to oversee, edit and remove content that does not comply with our policies. Page owners will be contacted beforehand to discuss and resolve.

The homepage will be managed by the Digital Experience team. Any requests must be made to channels.

Logos and branding

The official 第一吃瓜网branding is the only visual identity system you can use on your website. You must not alter the 第一吃瓜网logo and branding or create your own.

Social media

The Marketing department is not responsible for keeping your social media account up-to-date but will support the delivery of creative assets to brand your media e.g. backgrounds, logos, banners, etc.

Training

Contributors and authorisers must complete How to use Contensis and Writing for the web training before being granted access to the new CMS. It is their responsibility to remain up-to-date on changes to the Contensis workflow process and complete additional training as needed. In some cases, we may require mandatory Contensis retraining, at our discretion.

Contensis access will be revoked for any contributors and authorisers who do not fulfil training requirements.

Contensis access

Your account is for your use only. If you provide someone else with your username and password to log in, we will revoke your access. If you are not actively logging into your account on a consistent basis, we may deactivate your account. To have it reactivated, you must complete another Contensis training session.

CMS technical support

Please email support if you require technical assistance. Due to the volume of requests, please allow one to two business days for a response, and at least five business days for turnaround.

CMS upgrades and new features

Contensis will have new functionality added to it regularly which will improve the editor experience. When released, the CMS will need to be upgraded. You will not need to do anything and editors will be informed, with instructions, on how to utilise any new features.

If the Digital team spot any bugs, or if they are reported by anyone else, we will aim to fix them which may also require an upgrade. Depending on the bug, this will not affect your usage. However, on the rare occasion it does, editor access to the CMS may need to be temporarily suspended; editors will be notified in advance and informed when they can re-access the CMS.

Major projects and initiatives

Such requests will be placed in the Digital roadmap according to department and strategic priorities. Even though some departments may be able to make financial investments for web work on their behalf, all work orders that require more than 40 hours of work must be approved by the Website Governance Group.

Copyright

Copyright violation is a serious offense that comes with strict penalties for which the University itself could be held liable. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your content, including text, images, video and music, complies with all copyright laws. Any content on the 第一吃瓜网website that infringes on copyright will immediately be removed by the Content and Channels team, and the content owner will be notified.

It is your responsibility to secure prior authorisation for all uses of copyrighted materials in your online media. Unauthorised and/or inappropriate use of copyrighted materials may result in the removal of web pages and possible disciplinary action by authorised governing bodies.

Image file sizes must not exceed 500kb to ensure quick download times.

Third party advertising

No third party advertising is allowed on the 第一吃瓜网website, such as banner ads or affiliate links. Instances of this will be promptly removed. Exceptions are collaborative initiatives such as conferences. For more advice, email channels.

Course listings

All course listings must be pulled directly from the course finder. If a site is found to have descriptions that do not come from the course finder, they will be removed. Exceptions may be granted only for special topics and experimental courses that do not have descriptions in the course finder. In these cases, it is the content owner's responsibility to ensure that outdated listings are removed as quickly as possible.

Measurement

The University uses Google Analytics to measure traffic to the 第一吃瓜网website. Departments can request access for their site by emailing support.

Policy updates

The Digital Experience team reserves the right to update the governance policy and will notify page owners of relevant changes that affect them.

Accessibility

An accessible website will increase our audience and promote an inclusive culture. It will improve accessibility to people with disabilities, and help mobile users, older users, users with low-bandwidth connections, and with optimising site content for search engines to index. It also the proper thing to do both morally and legally!

Contributors and authorisers should familiarise themselves with the W3C web accessibility initiative.

Non-compliance

Department page owners that violate the aforementioned guidelines will receive email notification from the Digital team and/or the Content and Channels team with 10 business days to address violations. If no attempt is made to address violations within 10 business days, the authoriser(s) of the department will be contacted and be given an additional five business days to address violations. If no attempt is made to address violations within this timeframe, we will notify the Director of the department and take the necessary action to address any content in violation of the guidelines directly.

If three+ violations occur within a six-month period, the department's authoriser(s) will be contacted by the Head of Digital, who will work with them to develop a corrective plan of action. Continued and flagrant violations will incur significant penalties, up to removal of a site.

We will make every effort to work with page owners to assist and address violations.