Higher Education University Websites: Improving Information Architecture & Scientific Visibility

Improving Web Information Architecture&

International Scientific Visibility

University / Higher Education Websites:

CONTENTS

1. Questions you may ask yourself2. Information Architecture 3. Interaction Design4. Scientific Visibility5. Conclusions

1. Questions you may ask yourself

QUESTIONS YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF• Your Goals

• Your Challenges

• Your Target Audiences

• Your Analyses

STRATEGIC GOALS

• Reach more scientific international visibility?

• Obtain international agreements/ collaboration with reputed universities?

• Improve position on rankings (ARWU, THE, Webometrics…)?

• Enhance Intranet Knowledge Management?

• Optimize CRM performance?• … ?

TACTICAL GOALS

• More international students?

• More (and better) postgraduate students?

• Contract Highly Cited international Staff?

• Explore e-learning advantages?

• Companies agreements on R&D?

• … ?

YOUR GOALS

What do you want from your website? Example:

• More international students

YOUR GOALS

Web importance is growing as a source of information for international students:

• 61% students said that the university’s website was very important when they made their choice (website answers)

• 52% said that the opinion of someone who had been at this university was very important (alumni)

• brochures (10%)

• exhibitions (8%)(Lund University 2008- Sweden)

YOUR GOALS

So, when focusing on new students, ask yourself:

“Why did students choose my university?”

Gerry McGovern

Carewords Total %Prestigious, well-recognized degree 187 7% 7% 1%Future job prospects 137 5% 12% 1%Top quality professors/lecturers 107 4% 16% 2%Career advice 106 4% 19% 3%Top ranking university 101 4% 23% 3%Top ranking course 101 4% 27% 4%Social life 99 4% 30% 5%Nightlife 89 3% 33% 5%Fees 87 3% 37% 6%Postgraduate 80 3% 39% 6%Student-focused 79 3% 42% 7%Course materials 77 3% 45% 8%Societies and clubs 73 3% 48% 8%Faculties 71 3% 50% 9%

YOUR CHALLENGES• Budget• Bias (english dominance)• Internationalization & Globalization• Reputation & Credibility• How the university is perceived• Get them to where we want

YOUR TARGET AUDIENCES

• Prospective students• Parents & Careers Advisers• National and international researchers• Potential customers • The Media & Community• Current students • Staff • Alumni • Public Bodies & Government

ABOUT TARGET AUDIENCES

• Every potential user group look for different information

• Same content has different importance for different groups

• Prioritize contents prominance. How?• Power law: within target groups / audience

segments / cohorts, – a few info is searched by many,– most of info searched by a few.

ANALYSIS

J. J. Garrett

ANALYSIS - ELEMENTS

Peter Morville

ANALYSIS - PROCESS

Evaluation & Iteration

Questionnaires

KPI metricsTests & Prototyping

FEEDBACK

Information Audit

ANALYSIS – WHAT?University goals and objectives

Competitive analysis

Tasks AnalysisAudiences

Analysis

User needs analysis

ANALYSIS – HOW?• End user focus groups• Card sorting• Search Analytics• Web Analytics• Online/E-mail questionnaire• User prototypes testing• Webmaster emails from users requests• Etc.

ANALYSIS – HOW?When measuring:

• Define who your users are (segmentation)• Know what your users do on your site• Understand your users motivations• Don´t measure to meet your expectations• Look for patterns• Find causal relations

ANALYSIS - EXAMPLESNumber of prospectus queries per day:

(Manchester Metropolitan University)

ANALYSIS - EXAMPLESNumber of prospectus queries per day:

business 10,098law 9,512psychology 7,210fashion 5,660physiotherapy 4,297marketing 4,159teaching 4,141education 3,903english 3,789 (Manchester Metropolitan University)

2. Information architecture

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Change Management

Support Process design

ChecklistsVision Content “Supply” FlowPerformance MgmtBenchmarking data

Communications

Template messagesPresentationsPublicationsNewsletters/BulletinsConferencesDemonstrations“Success Stories”FAQ

Training

Classroom studyWorkshopsDistance LearningSelf Video/AudioTrain the trainersOn-line job aidsFaculty/Area Based

“Leadership kits”

Incentives +Rewards Programs

Promotion EventsFrequent User ProgramAcademy AwardsContestsIncentive ProgramsCareer Plan

usaid.gov

PUBLISH

THINK

4

Subject Matter ExpertContent 2

CMS

Content Manager

Content 1

Content 3

Functional KM

Team

1

2

GENERATE

3

PREPARE

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Whitworth et al.

privacy extendibility

security connectivity

reliability functionality

flexibilityusability

privacy

extendibility

security

connectivity

reliability

functionality

flexibilityusability

“balanced” “favouring security, reliability & privacy”

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

• Functional structure, not organizational• The web team/committee is not the audience• User always should know:

– where is, – where has been,– where is he going

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Let´s do some benchmarking:

• Home page main structures of… • Five of the better positioned universities in… • Webometrics.info worldwide ranking• Looking for matching points, patterns…

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

University portals analyzed:

- Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Harvard University - Stanford University - University of California Berkeley- Pennsylvania State University

According to these Websites, we can recognize a number of common sections in large part.

Identifying them with color labels it is possible to observe content related with international and promotional aspects.  

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT

MIT - Main Link Contents Analysis

Harvard University

Harvard – Main Link Contents Analysis

Stanford University

Stanford – Main Link Contents Analysis

Berkeley – University of California

Berkeley - Main Link Contents Analysis

Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania - Main Direct Links and Contents

3. Interaction design

INTERACTION DESIGN

• Identify tasks• Order by user priorities• Order user priorities by university goals• Create workflow to get the task done • Test it & Iterate• Measure after publishing• Redesign if necessary

INTERACTION DESIGN

J. Racine

INTERACTION DESIGNAn example of best practice:

Situation: English speaker graduate interested on studying a PHD in Netherlands, in Utrech University.

1. Enter in www.uu.nl/

1. Enter in www.uu.nl/

Website is in English. To change to NATIVE language, you have to choose the option.

2. Look for PhD studies

3. Look for PhD studies

3. Look for PhD studies

International Students MicroSite

Specific and Useful Information

3. Look for PhD studies

4. HERE WE ARE!

4. HERE WE ARE!

Complete info about how to obtain PhD

Direct access to main contents

4. HERE WE ARE!

And we also have all information for IS visible.

4. Scientific visibility

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY• To have a better portal is the beginning, not the end of story• A better portal is not enough• Reputation & Credibility comes from every researcher´s

reputation• Don´t wait the –research- world come to you• The more links –visibility- to you, the more probability of visits

and goals –tasks- completed.• Your university research need –always- more visibility

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY

Webometrics.info

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY• The more visibility, the more citations • Visibility is for:

– best authors who produce…– best papers, published in… – best “places” (journals, databases, internet…) to be found in…– more visible places, which are…– those with more connections

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY

Webometrics.info

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY

Source: Scopus

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITYIt is needed to enhance research visibility. How?

Outside your institution:

• Look for the best researchers (local, national, international)

• Attract international collaboration with better researchers than yourself

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITYIt is needed to enhance research visibility. How?

Inside your institution:

• Ensure control of your researchers publications• Measure, Compare and Evaluate• Give tools to reach more audience quickly. • The more audience, the more probability of citation

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITYControl, measure and evaluation of researchers publications to:

• Audit internal researchers publications quality • Understand your institution research fronts • Compare them internally and with others• Set personal and collective strategies• Improve scientific motivation

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY

Example: Cites per document (you against…)Source: Scimago (Scopus)

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITYIt is needed to enhance research visibility. How?

• Give researchers tools to reach more audience quickly. • The more audience, the more probability of citation

How?

SCIENTIFIC VISIBILITY• Publish in better impact factor Journals

• Publish in OAI (Open Access Initiative) journals

• Upload preprints, etc., to OAI repositories

• Think on Scholar SEO (Search Engine Optimization) at paper level.

• Work around general and specialized social networks

• Connect all actions (offline and online)

5. CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS• Set your strategic goals• Audit (diagnostics) first• Segment your audience• Analyze, measure, evaluate KPIs and production• Make it a commitment all organization members (KM)• Ensure everybody helps (Change management)• Organize contents by tasks, not by organizational chart.• The portal is not an island (visibility) • Give tools to your people & researchers• Think OAI / Scholar SEO & Social Media

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Jorge Serrano-Cobosjorge@masmedios.com

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