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 [email protected]
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