Newport University on Course Online
By admin
Issued on behalf of Precedent Communications
Newport University’s attempts to market itself online have won tacit approval from one of Britain’s top digital communication agencies.
A report by Precedent Communications on the websites of 57 of the UK’s modern universities assessed them on everything from the accessibility of their sites to their use of popular social networking websites such as My Space and Facebook.
The results were grouped into four categories – Getting the basics right, Communicating propositions, Meeting objectives and Use of technology – with marks awarded in each. Newport’s website www3.newport.ac.uk scored better than most in two of the categories – “Getting the basics right” and “Use of technology”.
Like many of the websites reviewed, it still had some way to go in “Meeting objectives” and lagged behind in “Communicating propositions” but the authors of the report say overall Newport University has laid good foundations to start reaching out to its target audiences and differentiating itself through the internet.
They say the report should be used by all the modern universities to assess their current activity as well as what their peers are doing that they could do too.
Adrian Porter, managing editor of the report and a Precedent consultant, said: “The internet plays a vital role in the strategies of modern universities so it is absolutely crucial for them to get their online activity right if they are to fulfil their business objectives.
“Increasingly all universities need to differentiate themselves online so what may be a good approach for one is not necessarily good for another. But whatever they do online, they must get the fundamentals right, so it’s very encouraging that Newport scored a creditable 73% in our ‘Getting the basics right’ category.”
The research was carried out by a team of five consultants at Precedent, which opened an office in Cardiff Bay in 2007. The agency, which was voted No 2 in the UK in by readers of Revolution magazine in 2006, has carried out other similar reports in the past including benchmarking the corporate websites of the FTSE100 companies and key government sites. It also has unrivalled experience within the education sector.
Among the findings in the “Meeting objectives” category, the report revealed that many universities’ sites lacked user-friendly web addresses (URLs) which could make them more difficult to find. It also noted that most of the websites didn’t offer journalists the opportunity to contact media-friendly experts among their staff.
Newport was one of several universities to get a mark of less than 50% in this category.
In ”Communicating the propositions”, the report warned that a third of universities were not providing clear and consistent copy throughout their websites, which risked damaging users’ perceptions of the university.
It also revealed that less than a third of them presented a potentially valuable positioning statement on their homepage. And while most of the websites reviewed offered a professional brand experience, very few provided anything truly dynamic. Those that did frequently used multimedia to bring the site to life.
But the report points out that Newport’s mark of 50% in this category is not necessarily a weakness if Newport wants to be seen as a devolved institution since it may be indicative of a university that is not heavily controlled by the Communications or Marketing departments but where staff from other areas of the university add significantly to the website themselves.
The fourth category assessed was “Use of technology” and here Newport was above average, although overall the universities did not score very highly. Among their findings, Precedent reported that:
- Only 23% of the sites reviewed used RSS feeds – a simple way of keeping users up to date without them having to visit the website.
- Just 2% used blogs to inform audiences of new developments, even though blogs are widely used by students and staff alike.
- And most surprisingly of all, none of the websites reviewed showed any evidence of using SMS to remind potential students of, or invite them to, open days and interviews even though text messaging is clearly widely used by students.
More encouragingly, however;
- 47% of the websites had a profile on a popular social networking site, such as My Space or Facebook.
- 98% had an entry on Wikipedia.
- 46% had used multimedia, such as video or podcasts, to enhance their sites.
- And a creditable 23% of universities allowed students to pay tuition fees online.
“Modern universities face huge challenges in a crowded marketplace but it is unrealistic to expect them to score 100% in each category, especially as their objectives become more focused on their core strengths,” said Adrian Porter.
“Communication, however, is one area they can become more efficient in as they target specific audiences and focus their offerings to them
“Perhaps one thing that all of the modern universities will have to come to terms with in future is technology. While they may adopt new technologies and multimedia in their marketing, they must realise that it is increasingly likely that many of these platforms will be outside of their direct control, just as Facebook, Wikipedia and You Tube are today.
“This will mean their actual website will have a diminishing part to play in their overall web presence, which will increasingly be managed by people who are not necessarily interested in the corporate line.”
Precedent’s full report, Modern Universities’ websites, Trends, observations and best practice, will be published on their website www.precedent.co.uk next week. Precedent will also be publishing reports on the websites of traditional universities and of HE establishments later in 2008.
