University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Working @ UB

Published: April 5, 2012

DCT town hall meetings kick off

The first of a series of quarterly “town hall” style meetings on UB’s Digital Communications Transformation process was held in Clemens Hall last Thursday with attendees from the Office of University Communications, UB Information Technology, the School of Public Health and Health Professions, the School of Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Jeff Smith, UB’s assistant vice president for marketing, Web and creative communications, offered participants an overview of the DCT process. Officially launched in January, the DCT initiative aims to improve the university’s Web presence with updated, content rich Web pages that achieve the goals and messages each respective campus unit seeks to convey.

To achieve this, DCT participants are asked to prepare a business strategy, evaluate the content on their current site and understand the concept of “mental models” and how the content on their website should be tailored to the needs of these users. “All of this represents a significant conceptual departure from previous website development processes,” Smith says.

Once these steps are completed, units can begin building a new website using the UB Content Management System (UBCMS), which allows UB website owners to build better sites in a cleaner, more efficient way that’s easier to maintain over time.

The town hall meetings are intended to provide DCT participants an opportunity to ask questions about the process, provide updates on where their respective units are in the process, and engage in roundtable discussions on a range of topics, including evaluating the content on their site, developing a content strategy and developing a business strategy.

“This will be a great way to exchange ideas and talk about new opportunities,” Smith said in kicking off the town hall meeting.

Smith provided an overview of the website set up to assist units as they build their new sites using the UBCMS. The UB Web Management Site serves as a self-guided support resource intended to provide units with the training and materials to create their new sites.

Still, there are representatives from UB’s Office of University Communications available to help departments through the process. “We want to be as hands on and personal as possible with this,” Smith said, pointing out the value of the video training modules available on the Web Management Site.

The DCT was developed through a partnership between the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University Communications and UBIT. Since the doors to the DCT opened earlier this year, a number of campus entities have begun the process of transforming their websites, including the Office of Sustainability, the Office of the Vice President for Development, the Department of Communications, University Business Services and the School of Public Health and Health Professions (SPHHP).

The School of Public Health is inching closer toward its goal of an August site activation, Michael Sciortino, a programmer/analyst with the school, reported at the meeting. He shared several tips for other units that helped SPHHP during the DCT process. In particular, Sciortino said the DCT process was made easier by the fact that the school already had in place both a Web group and a communications committee. Once they began working on the new website, the committees split the various tasks. In addition, he said, the school recognized the need to invest in hiring a writer to assist with the initiative.

“There’s definitely a lot of extensive documentation and training on the Web Management Site, which was very valuable each step of the way,” Sciortino said, adding that he strongly recommends taking the “Writing for the Web” module.

Asked what the biggest payoff likely will be in having a new and improved website for the school, Sciortino said the school hopes it will help attract more prospective students. In addition, he said, the new site will be much easier to use than the current one, with better organized content.

A question was also asked about the templates available within the UBCMS for units to use to design their new website. There was some concern that the templates wouldn’t provide the variety needed to help each department’s site stand out.

“We want there to be a high level of visual distinction to reflect the uniqueness of each unit that comes in,” Smith replied, noting that the UBCMS can accommodate a wide array of visual aesthetics while maintaining basic user interface standards.

University Communications has committed to collaborating with campus units to ensure that each new site in the UBCMS expresses a distinct identity, in tandem with the UB brand, Smith says.

The next DCT town hall meeting is scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon June 21 in 120 Clemens Hall, North Campus.