Wales’ Modern Universities Online
By admin
Issued on behalf of Precedent Communications
The efforts of Wales’s new universities’ to market themselves online have won tacit approval from one of Britain’s top digital communication agencies.
The online activities of three of Wales’ newest establishments – the Universities of Glamorgan, Newport and UWIC – were reviewed as part of the report by Precedent Communications on 57 of the UK’s modern universities, assessing them on everything from the accessibility of their websites 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.
There were mixed results for the three universities with University of Glamorgan’s website www.glam.ac.uk leading the way, scoring above average in each category and receiving the highest marks of any of the 57 sites reviewed in the “Use of technology” category.
The authors of the report say the universities have laid vital foundations to start reaching out to their target audiences and differentiating themselves through the internet. But they recommended that all the modern universities should use the report to assess their current activity and learn from what their peers are doing.
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 fulfill 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. There are some, like Glamorgan with its impressive implementation of technology, which offer plenty of ideas to others but there is obviously still scope for Glamorgan to learn from their peers reviewed in this report too.”
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.
The first category, “Getting the basics right”, dealt with having functional, usable and accessible websites. The sites assessed needed to utilise best practice and demonstrate an appreciation of current standards.
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.
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 fewer than one in three 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.
The fourth assessment was in the “Use of technology”. Glamorgan’s 70% score was nearly three times the average in a category in which modern universities could surprisingly only manage 25% in overall.
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 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 this month. Precedent will also be publishing reports on the websites of traditional universities and of HE establishments later in 2008.
