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November 16, 2023
Key Takeaways
- The new website and intranet will be ready to launch later in the academic year, not in December as originally projected.
- The existing website can and should continue to be updated as needed. Please follow the updated content guidelines.
- Later this month, we will complete the technical implementation, or build, of the new website into our CMS. This is a significant milestone. (As a reminder, the new site has been completely rebuilt from the ground up).
- There are two remaining phases, or key milestones, to complete for the new website to be ready for launch.
Why is the timeline for the launch being pushed out?
First, what is most important is that we launch the new website and intranet only when we are fully ready to do so. The new website and intranet will be transformational for the university, supporting key institutional outcomes and helping to empower each of us to do our work better in support of our students, recruitment and retention efforts and in elevating the university’s academic reputation.
In short, the timeline is being pushed out because the content refresh for the new website is not yet complete and the development of the intranet needs more time.
The refresh, or updating of content, is an enormous undertaking involving many members of our campus community—this is in addition to existing workloads. While we are grateful to campus partners who have been able to complete and submit new and updated content for their pages on time or within the extended deadline, workload challenges vary across areas and some have needed more time. In addition, the university’s web team recently experienced unexpected staffing changes that have necessitated adjustments to the refresh work. Copy for about 80 percent of the nearly 400 authoritative, or priority, pages and an additional 1,000 sub-pages that are part of the refresh has been completed and submitted. Collaboration is ongoing to complete and submit the remaining 20 percent. Additional steps and a review of priority pages by the web team are then needed before the content is finalized and ready for migration to the new website.
While the initial plan was to launch the new website first and then launch the intranet at a later date, that changed earlier in the year as the determination was made to do both together. Furthermore, as we transition away from an all-in-one website that includes both internal and external content, there is some complexity in determining which pages remain external facing on the website and which should be only internal facing on the intranet. Even though this is a relatively small percentage of the overall pages that will ultimately be on the intranet, it adds time and planning for how to make it all work and flow for a great user experience where everyone is able to find what they need online with as little effort as necessary.
Change management is also a key component of the transition, with additional time needed for training within the new website and intranet to support content editors and publishers.
What does this mean for the existing website and content freeze?
Any updates that need to be made to the existing university website should be done consistent with the updated content guidelines. The guidelines provide flexibility and a process for everyone needing to update current pages. While several areas remain exempt and can make changes on their own, other areas should submit requests for updates to the web team. We are adding additional student workers to provide support for this purpose.
When will the content migration begin?
We are already migrating content to the new site. We will begin the full content migration once the content refresh is complete. We anticipate being close to complete with the content refresh around or soon after the end of this year (2023). The content migration will involve around 4,000 to 4,500 pages being migrated into the pages on the new website. It will be a collaborative effort involving the support of student workers, the web team and the campus web community.
What happens after the content migration?
Two things. First, we go through a period of up to two weeks of testing the new site to ensure it is ready for launch. We want to be sure we have addressed all potential significant issues. Second, once the new site is ready for launch, we need to be sure it is done at a time when it will be least disruptive to other university business, especially admissions and enrollment work. As we complete our analysis of where we are and make additional adjustments, we will have a clearer sense of the timeline and will be able to determine the precise timing for the launch date later this academic year—again, in a way that aligns well with the natural rhythm of other university business.