A higher education website is the gateway to a plethora of information for future and current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the public at large. While some websites need to serve all these audiences, more often than not, it’s more useful to prioritize your audiences and create pathways to the most important content for each audience or audience segment.

Defining your website goals clearly is the first step.

Here are some tips you can follow when you're ready to start developing content for your college or university website

Prospective Students As A Primary Audience

While prospective students are not the sole audience to consider when strategizing content for your post-secondary website, they are the most important audience for many higher education websites. In fact, they are the primary domain of competition between post-secondary institutions, which is why an institution’s main website, often serves as a marketing hub for this audience.

But universities and colleges often have a mandate that reaches far beyond teaching students. They are engines of research innovation, employers, and often house repositories of information for the larger community. And the needs of these secondary audiences should be taken into account, but they are often served by other websites. Websites for individuals schools, faculties, and departments, online learning platforms, and intranets for faculty and staff, with a more targeted, internal audience. 

That’s why the primary marketing focus of any university or college is typically student recruitment and therefore, understanding the needs of prospective students is paramount to your content strategy. 

 

7 Content Ideas for Your Higher Education Website

Your higher education website plays a significant role in establishing your online brand and in recruiting prospective students. Here are content ideas to consider to appeal to this key audience

1. Student Testimonials

Student testimonials are a great way to show off the student experience. You can use these testimonials in a number of ways, such as on your website, social media, or in marketing materials. 

These can be featured prominently on your website, either on the homepage or on specific pages like your program pages. They also make for excellent social media content, showcasing to potential students what it's really like to be a student at your institution.

One technique for these testimonials is to embed them as videos, as a stand-in for talking to a current student, which we know from our user research is one of the top things potential students do to assess an institution.

2. Numbers & Key Statistics 

Provide information that helps prospective students make informed choices such as student satisfaction, job placement rates, fees and housing costs, and more. 

An example of our work with York University Website - Content geared to Future students

 

Include information about the courses offered and ensure that it’s consistent with the rest of the website, brochures, handbooks, and other admissions websites you might have. Review this content at a regular frequency to assure the accuracy of the information. For more information about keeping your content up-to-date, read our recent article about content governance strategies.

And always make sure to use reliable sources and cite them properly when sharing data and analytics.

3. Campus Life

Potential students want to learn what it would be like if they were to study at your school. They want to get a taste of campus life, activities, and culture. Your website is a place to invite students into the atmosphere on campus, get them excited, and give them a reason to choose your institution, or at least schedule an in-person visit. 

You can do this by showing pictures of the campus, students and events. These snapshots give potential applicants a better picture of what they can expect and whether your school is a good fit for their interests and lifestyle. 

4. Embedded Cost Calculator 

We’ve heard it directly from students in user interviews. Students want to know up-front the costs of attending your school. Creating a calculator that breaks down the cost of the user’s selected program based on their demographic information gives potential students an interactive way to start planning out their course of study. It’s great if you can include estimated costs for books and housing, as these costs will be new for students studying away from home at a higher education institution for the first time. 

5. Spotlights on Individuals

Powerful and engaging storytelling is key to attracting prospective students. Beyond student testimonials, you may want to feature profiles of some researchers, admin staff or alumni to showcase what individuals in your community have achieved. This helps prospective students relate on a more personal level to your institution.

We featured these types of spotlights extensively in our work with York University. Read our York University Future Students case study for details.

6. Trending Topics Using Search Engine Optimization Tools 

Take the time to perform keyword research to uncover opportunities to write keyword-focused content and rank well in search engines – generating organic traffic for your website. While it’s important to write about the topics that are relevant to your institution, you can do it in a way that is optimized for search, giving you the best chance that it will be found when potential students are searching for a particular program, online learning opportunity, or institution in your region.

Let’s say you want to write an article about a niche Engineering program offered at your school. You can use Google AdWords Keyword Planner or Google Trends to see what keywords are being searched in relation to the field of engineering. You can then use those keywords in your article, so it has a better chance of ranking highly in search engines.

7. Administrative Information

The logistics of the institution are important as well. Be sure to include administrative information on your website, such as housing options, work permit information for international students, visa requirements, how to apply, and other necessary information. Providing enough information so that potential students understand the admissions process helps keep them on your website while researching their options. 

That said, providing too much detail about every service and option that you offer can overwhelm the site and dilute its main purpose of giving a great first impression. Draw the line and don’t duplicate content that lives elsewhere in your digital ecosystem.

Creating Great Content for Your Prospective Students

Hopefully, these content recommendations will help make your institution's website more engaging for prospective students. Remember that you’re making a first impression, and your goal is to give users a realistic glimpse at your institution so they can make the best decision for their academic careers. 

 

A well-thought-out content strategy can make all the difference for your enrollment numbers! We can help you achieve your goals, contact us to get started.

 

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A guide to Project Browser Maitreayee Bora Wed, 10/19/2022 - 12:06

To add a new feature to a Drupal website, one needs to find the right module on Drupal.org, download and then add it to the website. 

Surfing over 40,000 Drupal modules is not a smooth task. 

Lack of resources and technical knowledge can turn out to be a challenge in Drupal adoption and usage.

The Project Browser initiative, proposed in DrupalCon Europe 2021, seeks to make this entire process less complicated & user-friendly for website owners & managers. With browsing and installing modules at the click of a button. 

It lets site builders discover and add modules of their choice right away from their own website. To make certain actual-time records access, the component will connect with the Drupal.org API using a decoupled approach.

What is Project Browser?

The concept of Project Browser was first discussed around 2011. Finding and installing modules requires too many steps, and it happens to be difficult for new users. This initiative offers the chance of enhancing Drupal’s experience and enlarge the community. 

The minimum viable product (MVP) will deliver users the capacity to browse modules compatible with the Drupal version of their website, give instructions for downloading and installing modules, and also filter modules in regard to category. 

Initially, it was developed as a contributed module, however, now it is planned in Drupal 10 core.

It is planned to automatically set up modules through Composer, add additional filters, include themes and distributions, and include the detail page of the module inside the Project Browser UI rather than linking to Drupal.org. 

Source: Drupal.org 

At DrupalCon Prague 2022, during Dries’ keynote, he showed a video of Srishti Bankar, who works on the Project Browser initiative. So, the goal of the Project Browser is to simplify the installation of new modules in a project. The user will basically have access to a page within the user interface where they are able to search for modules and use filters such as Maintenance Status or Security Advisory Coverage renovation popularity or safety Advisory Coverage to narrow down the search results.

How does it work? 

The process of using Project Browser is pretty simple. Let’s understand it in three easy steps.

Step1- Install the Project Browser module.

Step2- A “browse” tab appears with the “Extend” section of the admin interface.

Step3- One can search through Drupal’s modules and find the right one for their use case.

Here is an informative video on Drupal Project Browser Initiative from DrupalCon North America 2021. 
 

Learn more about:

• The Drupal 10 Readiness Initiative
• The new features and improvements in Drupal 10
• Decoupled menus initiative of Drupal

Conclusion

The Drupal community is focused on making the Project Browser easier for all to find and install new functionality on their websites. Project Bowser is one of the key upcoming features for Drupal 10 that is being built as contributed modules. Hence, we look forward to seeing some amazing updates to this module in near future.
 

Articles Off

• 

  Take a deep dive into the Decoupled menus initiative of Drupal

• 

  The new features and improvements in Drupal 10

• 

  The Drupal 10 Readiness Initiative - What’s your Drupal 10 plan?

While the need for web accessibility was not envisioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law more than 30 years ago, ADA web accessibility has emerged as a fundamental necessity, and top-of-mind topic among web developers and stakeholders.

This article will explain what website migration involves and why it is worth the effort. We’ll also discuss why you need migration and how to prepare for it.

Join us on Thursday, October 20 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our normally scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

This month frequent chat participant Stephen Musgrave of Capellic will be giving us a demonstration of visual regression testing -- just in time for the upcoming PHP 7.4 end of life!  (Thank you, Stephen!) Got thoughts/questions/concerns? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google doc: https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone. 

• Join the call: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81817469653

  • Meeting ID: 818 1746 9653
    Passcode: 551681

  • One tap mobile:
    +16699006833,,81817469653# US (San Jose)
    +13462487799,,81817469653# US (Houston)

  • Dial by your location:
    +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
    +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
    +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
    +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
    +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
    +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

  • Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kpV1o65N

• Follow along on Google Docs: https://nten.org/drupal/notes

View notes of previous months' calls.

Today we are talking about PHP End of Life with Josh Waihi & Matt Glaman.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/369

Topics

• PHP End of Life (EoL)
• Why does PHP go EoL
• When will php 8.0 EoL
• How are dates scheduled
• Who is in charge
• How do you prepare as a developer
• How do you prepare as a platform
• Acquia is supporting for one more year
• Pantheon has no forced upgrades
• How do you find edge cases
• Do you speak with PHP maintainers
• What are the changes to be excited about 7 > 8
• For D7 this is challenging, any tips?

Resources

• https://stitcher.io/blog/new-in-php-8
• https://medium.com/jakob-on-drupal/dont-go-making-major-version-changes-474293dda1d7
• https://dev.acquia.com/article/how-select-drupal-modules-part-3-evaluation-tips

Guests

Matt Glaman - @nmdmatt Josh Waihi - @joshwaihi

Hosts

Nic Laflin - www.nLighteneddevelopment.com @nicxvan John Picozzi - www.epam.com @johnpicozzi Tearyne Almendariz - @tearyneg

MOTW

HTTP Cache Control HTTP Cache Control module helps fine grain control of Drupal’s Cache Control headers.

Driven by big software and design-driven companies such as Airbnb, Shopify, or Atlassian, design systems have become a popular way to build better digital products. Here, we share how pattern libraries are different from a design system, and yet an essential part of the system to build a unified design language.

What is a Design System and How is it Helpful?

Design systems are more than a collection of assets or a library of patterns. They are a set of standards, style guides and components used to unify a brand's experience.

I see two main benefits of design systems:

1. Consistency: with a set of core brand elements that are reused consistently across all channels, your audience will recognize your brand among your competitors more quickly. 

2. Efficiency: with a lot of web pages, several websites, apps or other marketing channels, a design system makes the design process more efficient. 

When designers or developers reuse core elements, the results are not only more consistent with previous designs, but they can also focus on the more complex tasks at hand. No need to start over with the design or implementation of a button or an icon, efforts can go on the hierarchy of elements, their flow and more complicated features.

Think of a design system as combining a cookbook and a shelf of ingredients. You don’t have to start growing avocados whenever you want to make avocado toast. The recipe gives tips on using ingredients that you already have.

Similarly, a design system provides tips, guidelines and ingredients. The first chapter often covers brand elements such as the logo, the colours and fonts and how to use them. It can include design and writing style guides. This is the foundation of the brand identity. 

I’m actually growing my own avocado plant for fun (left image). But thanks to the fruit store around the corner, I don’t have to wait months or years until I can make my next avocado toast!

The Atomic Design Approach

Aside from logos and colours, digital design systems have other ready-to-use web and app components. Those can be buttons, icons or input fields. One popular approach to group components can be found in the Atomic Design approach. The Atomic design groups components as

• Atoms: the smallest parts in the system, such as buttons, icons and input fields.
• Molecules: a typical form, for instance, consists of a label, an input field and a button. 
• Organisms: the largest parts are organisms that are made out of molecules; a header of a website including the logo, the main navigation, and a search input is an example of an organism.

Other approaches call the smaller parts “components” and the larger combinations “patterns”.

 Atomic Design: User interface elements grouped into atoms, molecules and organisms. Learn more here

Pros & Cons of Design Systems

No matter what we call the elements, reusable components make designers' lives much easier! UI design tools like Figma, Sketch and Adobe XD now all provide ways to create and share reusable elements within design files and even across a project team. It fits into an agile development approach too, because it’s possible to iterate on the colour of a button, even late in a design process. If the file is set up well, the button can be applied a hundred times throughout the file and only needs to be updated once in the original file. 

But the benefits go beyond the design process. Websites built with Drupal and WordPress are also set up with reusable backend components. After handing over the new digital platforms to our clients, content editors can pick and choose these building blocks to assemble new landing pages. With this system, the websites can follow clients' needs and grow with their business or institution; a bit like building with Lego, except, in our case, you can even change the colour of your block! (Of course, within the constraints of the branding guidelines and accessibility standards.)

 Design systems turn chaos into order with building blocks and guidelines

 

Is Maintaining A Design System Worth it?

There is much more to a design system than the sum of its parts. It needs guidelines to make sure the elements are combined in the best possible way. And it needs people who care about the brand to keep the system up to date because a design system is never static. It can be very time intensive to maintain such a system and you might be wondering if it’s worth it, or if it might come at the expense of creativity.

If a system is applied very strictly and doesn’t allow for flexibility, this can be true. But you'd be blaming the method when it’s the execution that makes all the difference. I believe that, if the brand identity atoms are well-defined, you can already achieve a great amount of visual consistency. Even if you mix and match them to create new molecules and organisms. Just like there are a ton of different ways to prepare avocado toast, you want to allow for some freedom and creativity in the kitchen as well as in the web design process.

Check out the Atlassian design system

 

Have a pattern library or design system project in mind?

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READ MORE

Creating services that listen events in Drupal is pretty straightforward; you just need to create and register a service class and let Drupal know what event you want to trigger on.

Altering routes in a Drupal site is also done through an event trigger, but in this case the implementation is slightly different. This is because Drupal takes care of the trigger setup and allows you to create an event subscriber that will automatically trigger when the routes are created.

In this article I will go through how to set up a route alter event subscriber, why the setup is slightly different from normal events, and what this event might be used for.

Altering Routes Using A Route Subscriber

Registering a route subscriber is done just like any other even subscriber with an entry in the module services YAML file. Adding a tag with the name of "event_subscriber" tells Drupal that this class should be included when events are triggered.

services: mymodule.route_subscriber: class: Drupal\mymodule\Routing\CustomRouteSubscriber tags: - { name: event_subscriber }

Next, we need to add the routing class to listen to the event. This can be put anywhere in the module, but its conventionally put into a Routing directory within the module src directory. Your module's directory structure should look something like this with the route subscriber in place.

Read more.

The countdown for Drupal 10 is on, with the expected release date right around the corner! Drupal 10 is coming this 14 December 2022. Drupal 10.0.0-beta2 and 9.5.0-beta2 were released in September. Release candidates are expected in mid-November. Check out the Drupal core release cycle page on Drupal.org for more information.

With Drupal 10 coming out in two months, you might be wondering how you can prepare to upgrade to Drupal 10. Here are a few key ways to get ready:

• If you’re on Drupal 9, use Upgrade Status on your Drupal 9 site to get an estimate of the work needed. The plan provided by the module will tell you where to use drupal-rector to update your own custom code and where to help contributed projects update their code.

• Drupal 8 reached its end of life in November 2021! You must update to Drupal 9 first to update to Drupal 10 later on. Use Upgrade Status to analyze your site. There are almost 9 thousand contributed projects ready for Drupal 9. 

• Drupal 7 end of life has been extended to at least Nov 2023, and may be extended further. Yes, this is after the planned release of Drupal 10. While Drupal 10 will include migration tools from Drupal 7, it is much more likely that the contributed projects you use are available for Drupal 9 already, and they may not be ready shortly after the Drupal 10 release. Therefore, you shouldn't wait to migrate to Drupal 10 directly, but start updating to Drupal 9 soon. 

All of this information and more is available on the Drupal 10 page.  You can also check out the page to familiarize yourself with the new features!

Drupal 10 has been a big project, and we cannot be more thankful for our amazing team of contributors who are working hard to make it possible. Thank you to everyone who has been working to complete the requirements and strategic initiatives needed for Drupal 10!

Stay tuned throughout the months leading up to the 14 December release target for more updates and information on Drupal 10, and make sure to follow us on Twitter @DrupalAssoc and @Drupal to stay up-to-date on all of the latest Drupal 10 news.