A briefing for staff in the School of Arts & Humanities

Audiences

Prospective

students

Media and

press

General

public

Research

partners

and

funders

Alumni

Current

students

Current

staff

Academic

community

Internal

audiences

The School and department websites

appeal to a mixed audience –content should therefore be

written to engage a broad range of audiences

However, our key

audience is prospective students. The website is

the most important decision making tool for

prospective students

King’s

homepage

Prospective

students Campus life

Research &

innovation

Academic

Schools

Arts &

Humanities

Academic

departments

Comp Lit

website

Giving to King’s Alumni online About King’s Prospectus Other homepage

links

Nu

mb

er

of

vis

its

• The number of visits decreases as you progress further from the King’s homepage • Far more prospective students will follow the path: King’s homepage Prospectus apply than: King’s homepage Academic Schools A&H Departments English Study Prospectus Apply

• It is therefore better for us to put content at a top level if possible e.g. within the Prospectus rather than on

the departmental website

• Our websites are edited by Professional Services staff who receive mandatory and regular training

• They receive guidance and policy through the School’s Web and Publicity Committee.

Information from the College’s IT and Brand Communications team is fed to the group • The group works to improve the consistency and effectiveness of our websites • Web editors are trained in the King’s house style, search engine optimisation and writing

for the web

• The network is used to cross promote news and feed information to other parts of the College

An up-to-date list of the lead website editors in the School can be found on our intranet pages

• Users scan content – often reading less than 20% and often only the first two words of a paragraph

• Users do not like to scroll

• Users do not read webpages in order or view many pages per visit – they will instead search for keywords to try and find the specific information they require

• Users do not navigate down through many levels within the website and expect

to find the information they need within one – two clicks from the homepage

This is particularly true of our key audience who are digital

natives and do not have a large attention span for content

‘F’ pattern of how most users scan a webpage

• Be succinct

• Consider your audience – think about what they want to know and not what you want them to know

• Use headings and sub-headings to break up content

• Use bullet points

• Avoid complex language and remember that our key audience is 17!

• Structure your content using the inverted pyramid format: most important: conclusion, less important: explanation, least important: details

• Use images

It is important to remember that some content shouldn’t be online – excess content complicates user journeys and can lead to information becoming lost

Homepage

About us People Study Research Alumni News Events Contact us

It is important that our websites are as consistent as possible to allow our users to know where to find the information they need

- Overview of

the department

- USPs

- Vision for the

future

- History of the

department

- Student /

research

community

-Cultural

partners / other

partnerships

- Location and

facilities

- Strategy /

aims

- Research

strengths

- Key research

areas / key

research

questions

- Collaborative

research areas

/ research

centres

- Significant

funding

successes

- Research

partnerships

- Public

engagement

and impact

- This page is

based on a set

template with

flexibility to add

in info about

dept activities

- Short staff

profiles with

links to more

detailed

information in

the Research

Portal / Pure

- This page

uses a set

template

- Overview of

UG, PGT and

PGR Study

with links to the

Prospectus

- Why study

the subject at

King’s?

- Links to the

funding

database

- Meet our

students page

(links to more

testimonials in

Prospectus)

- Submit your

news via our

online form:

- Awards / Prizes

- Funding

announcement /

new research

project

- Media

appearance

- New

appointment

- Announcements

of research

findings

- Send details

of your events

to your lead

web editor:

- Talks

- Conferences

- Exhibitions

- Seminars etc

• The School has 10,000 webpages (twice as many as SSPP, four times that of NMS)

• Maintaining this content is resource intensive and some of our most important content gets lost

• Our websites need to showcase only the most important information and not duplicate content from other systems or parts of the King’s website

• Our websites act as a signpost pointing people towards the information they need

Prospective

students

Prospectus

College Funding database

Study abroad info

Department

website

Research

Portal

Prospectus

Modules

Intranet

KEATS

Department

student

handbook

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ • Research repository • Staff profiles (research) • Research projects • Research publications • Other research outputs • PGR student profiles • Academic staff can edit info themselves

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/prospectus/ • Prospective student information • List of programmes by level /

department • Description of programmes • Videos about specific programmes • Overall structure - module list • Entry requirements

• Application, selection procedure • Student testimonials

e.g. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/classics/modules/index.aspx • Module catalogue for current

students • Detailed descriptions of individual

modules in the department

e.g. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/classics/study/handbook/index.aspx • Information for current students

in the department • E.g. about the department,

starting the academic year, programmes, teaching & delivery, research, assessment and FAQs

• Links to School Handbook and College Handbook

http://keats.kcl.ac.uk/ • Virtual Learning Environment • Course notes for current

students

https://internal.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/index.aspx • Information for staff in the School • Committee admin, Finance, Health & Safety,

HR, IT, Learning & teaching, Publicity & marketing, Research, Supporting your students

Information should be kept in most appropriate system and linked to from department website – not duplicated

• The Prospectus is the main place for programme information for prospective students – information on departmental websites should not duplicate this information. This includes programme descriptions, entry requirements and application information

• The Research Portal is our research repository for all our publications, staff research information and PGR research profiles – this should not be duplicated

• The top level menu items on the departmental websites have been set by W&PC and some second level menu names and templates have also been set. If you have a query about the menu structure please ask your department website editor or the School Publicity Co-ordinator

• When content is duplicated (or there are two pages with very similar content) this causes the two pages to compete and the search rankings for both pages will be compromised as a result

• Duplicate versions of pages are very confusing for website visitors and complicates their user journeys

• There is also the risk that one version will not be updated and will contain out-of-date / inaccurate information

• An example are the programme pages which are on some of our department websites as well as in the Prospectus

Department homepages follow this template.

The three images at the bottom can be altered –

to request one of these slots please speak to

your department website editor

This is the most common template used on the

King’s website for content pages. The page

content in the centre of the page and the images

on the right can be altered

Most of our news and events pages are

displayed in listings like this one. All Department

news and events automatically feed up to the

School listing

Department website profiles

• All staff profiles follow this template, use the same

subheadings, contain contact details and a link to the

Research Portal

• Your staff profile on the department website is

designed to give an overview of your work and

cannot be regularly updated

Research Portal profiles

• Please keep your Research Portal profile up-to-date:

- Research interests

- Biography

- Research students and staff

- Research outputs

- Research funding (and projects)

- Theses

What do they want to know?

Prospective students

• What is unique about the department • Cultural partnerships / opportunities • Course reviews / satisfaction ratings (most of this info is fed in from the

Unistats website and appears in the Prospectus) • Careers and destinations of previous students (every website has an

automatically generated page on careers and destinations of UG students) • What life is like in the department • Study abroad opportunities • Programmes run by the department (this info is contained in the Prospectus) • Location / maps • Student success stories

What do they want to know? Notes

Current students

• Induction and enrolment information • Term dates • Contact details for staff • News and events

Info which is only for current students is kept in the Student Handbook area of the website: /depts/study/handbook

Research partners and funders

• Description of research areas and specialties • Quality of existing research • Research staff contact details

Detailed research information lives in the Research Portal

Academic community

• Staff areas of expertise and contact details Detailed research information lives in the Research Portal

Media and press • Areas of expertise • Contact details of staff

The majority of media and press will go to the PR pages rather than department websites

Current staff • News and events in the department • What information is being given to students • Policies, finance, committee, HR info

Info which is only for current staff is kept on the intranet

Alumni • Upcoming events for alumni • Department alumni initiatives or networks • How to get in contact with former alumni • How to donate

Our alumni pages act as a signpost to the main alumni area of the website

General public • Events which are open to the general public • Overview of research

Sophie Smith School Publicity Co-ordinator VB 2.19 020 7848 2689 sophie.smith@kcl.ac.uk https://internal.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/staff/pubmark/index.aspx