Mending a broken web

“Dear Dalhousie University: Your website f***ing sucks.”
- Twitter comment, December 2009

When Dalhousie last reworked its website to any significant degree, the year was 2004. Only 15 per cent or so of Canadians had broadband Internet connections, compared to over 70 per cent today. YouTube and Twitter hadn’t been invented yet, and Facebook was barely a gleam in its creator’s eye.

A lot has changed online in the past five years. Dalhousie really hasn’t. Until now.

Next week, website visitors will notice two small changes to their online Dalhousie experience. The first: a redesigned homepage. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does reposition the website as the key destination for prospective students. The second: new additions to the MyDal portal, including the ability to view your e-mail inbox at a glance and offering easier layout customization.

Update: Due to unforeseen issues, the new additions to MyDal have been delayed until further notice.

Both of these are interim changes: temporary improvements to a couple of key websites as part of a much larger and more ambitious process. The Dalhousie Web Project is a joint effort between Information Technology Services, Communications and Marketing and the Registrar’s Office to revitalize Dalhousie’s online presence. Launched last year, the project has spent months working with internal stakeholders behind-the-scenes to start confronting the monumental task it faces.

“This is more than window dressing or a new coat of paint,” explains Dwight Fischer, Dalhousie’s chief information officer and project lead. “Dalhousie’s website has grown over the years without addressing some serious issues, from strategy and governance policies through to web navigation and technical systems. This is a chance to reboot, to rethink how we use the web at Dalhousie."

The web project is managed on a day-to-day basis by a small project team and overseen by a steering committee consisting of senior administrators and university leaders. Much of the work is being done in cooperation with Non-linear Creations, the project’s external consulting partner.

The web project’s primary goal, as defined through a consultation process with campus leaders and web content producers last year, is to reposition the public Dalhousie website to focus on the university’s external audiences – particularly prospective students. In rethinking web content and navigation, the project hopes to “clean up” existing web properties by helping content providers assess what material can be moved behind a login – either at MyDal or a planned Dalhousie Intranet site – and what makes sense for the public web.

“All the research we’ve reviewed shows that the university website is the most important tool for helping students decide which school to attend,” says Jim Vibert, assistant vice-president of Communications and Marketing. “In this competitive recruitment environment, we risk losing prospects to other schools if our websites are not engaging them with good reasons to come to Dalhousie from the first click.”

Redesigned homepage.

The web project’s next major goal is a redesigned and reorganized dal.ca that will launch in fall 2010. Currently, the project team is working on a new site map for better navigation, testing a new content management system that will make it easier to update and manage the web, and planning strategies for training and development of web content providers.

After the fall launch, the plan is to extend this model to websites for Dalhousie’s faculties and departments while, at the same time, building and improving Dalhousie’s internal web capabilities and functionality on portals such as MyDal. Throughout, the project team will continue to engage internal stakeholders in the process as much as possible.

“We couldn’t have gotten this ball rolling if we didn’t have support on campus, from the president on down to our many web content providers,” says Mr. Fischer. “Everyone knows that the status quo isn’t working. We’re working hard to live up to our stakeholders expectations.”

Dalhousie faculty and staff interested in learning more can read the web project’s guiding documents and blog updates at blogs.dal.ca/webproject. NetID and password required for access.