Slides for talk on "Realising the vision of a single source of course information" given at the IWMW 2017 event held at the University of Kent on 11-13 July 2017.

1. Realising the vision of a single source of
course information
Graham Bird, Jenni Taylor and David Hopkins
Cardiff University

2. Contents
• Background
• Technical implementation
• Managing the content
• Lessons learned
• Benefits and next steps

3. Consumer Markets Authority
Advice to higher education:
• give students the clear, accurate and timely
information that they need so they can make an
informed decision about what and where to
study
• ensure that terms and conditions are fair, for
example, so universities cannot make
surprising changes to the course or costs
• ensure that complaint handling processes are
accessible, clear and fair

4. Consumer Markets Authority
Advice to higher education:
• give students the clear, accurate and timely
information that they need so they can make
an informed decision about what and where to
study
• ensure that terms and conditions are fair, for
example, so universities cannot make
surprising changes to the course or costs
• ensure that complaint handling processes are
accessible, clear and fair

5. What this meant for us
• 350+ undergraduate courses
• 40,000+ webpages
• Durable medium required
• October 2015 deadline
• Formal working group formed
• Website checked extensively with
SiteImprove
• Realisation that website and SITS out of step

6. Our starting point
• Course information already centralised on
website (due to Unistats requirements)
• Data flows to legacy API platform already
established
• New Welsh Language Scheme requirements
• New API platform being introduced
• Moving website to new CMS

7. Five content management systems*
Content System
Most of website Percussion Rhythmyx
Study pages Bespoke CMS (developed by agency)
Course pages Bespoke web application (developed by agency)
New parts of website Squiz Matrix
Authoritative course data SITS
* just for undergraduate marketing

8. Five content management systems
• Duplication of cost
• High risk of inaccuracy
• Many points of failure (software and
hardware)
• Three different designs
• Course content unstructured
Welsh language support poor on old systems
• Search rankings split over seven URLs

9. Five content management systems
• Duplication of cost
• High risk of inaccuracy
• Many points of failure (software and
hardware)
• Three different designs
• Course content unstructured
Welsh language support poor on old systems
• Search rankings split over seven URLs

13. Five content management systems
• Duplication of cost
• High risk of inaccuracy
• Many points of failure (software and
hardware)
• Three different designs
• Old pages not mobile-friendly
• Welsh language support poor on old systems
• Seven URLs

14. Five content management systems
• Duplication of cost
• High risk of inaccuracy
• Many points of failure (software and
hardware)
• Three different designs
• Old pages not mobile-friendly
• Welsh language support poor on old systems
• Seven URLs

15. Seven URLs*
• www.cardiff.ac.uk
• www.cf.ac.uk
• www.caerdydd.ac.uk
• courses.cf.ac.uk
• courses.cardiff.ac.uk
• coursefinder.cf.ac.uk
• coursefinder.cardiff.ac.uk
* just for undergraduate marketing

16. Student Records
System
(SITS)
Legacy API
Main
website
CMS
VLE
Study
pages
Course
database
Course
pages
CMS
New
CMS
New
website
pages
Before…

17. Student Records
System
(SITS)
Legacy API
Main
website
CMS
VLE
Study
pages
Course
database
Course
pages
CMS
Insert solution here
New
CMS
New
website
pages
Before…

18. Technical implementation
• SITS data and integration
• Squiz development
• Performance

19. SITS data
Content is held as “descriptions” in SITS against
individual courses
Also for each course:
• Name, qualification and mode
• Fees
• Module listings
• Intakes
• Percentage taught in Welsh

20. SITS integration
• SITS data goes into data hub
• WS02 API Manager connected to data hub
• WS02 endpoint accepts parameters:
– course code
– year
– language
– module year
• JSON response handcrafted
• If Welsh not available, English returned

21. Example request
/squiz/v1/courses/UFBSACCA?year=2018&m
oduleYear=2017&lang=welsh
Parameter Value
Course UFBSACCA
Year of entry 2018
Module year 2017
Language Welsh

22. Example response

23. SITS vs Squiz content
• Authors manage all course information in
SITS
• Minimal information in Squiz data records:
– Course code
– Configuration (eg year of entry)
– Images
– Videos
– Testimonials

24. WS02 API Manager
Squiz Matrix development
Paint Layout
REST JS asset
Mustache
Lodash
JavaScript
functions
EN
template
CY
template
Course
data
record
Holds course
code and year
API request supplies
course code, year and
language

25. In Squiz Matrix

27. Performance
• Course pages cached for two hours
– Increases speed
– Reduces load on API platform
– Covers brief API outages
• Funnelback enterprise search
– Stores API response for every course (takes an
hour to crawl)
– Search and listings respond instantly
– Search and listings are CMA-compliant

28. Student Records
System
(SITS)
New API platform
Main
website
VLE
Course
pages
Search
and
listings
New
CMS
Durable
medium
Now…
Funnelb
ack

29. Managing the content
• Who was involved
• Developing course content
• Pain points
• Lessons learned

30. Who was involved
CMA group made up of:
• Communications and Marketing
– UG/PG recruitment, Digital Comms, Comms
• Registry
• 3 x College Communications
• Finance
• Admissions

31. Developing course content
Task Responsible
Initial review of all course
content
College led with input from CMA group and
Digital Communications
Agree template and required
fields
CMA group
Rewrite all courses Colleges, Academic Schools, Copywriters
and Digital Communications
Ensure style guide followed Colleges and Digital Communications
QA review process before
launch
Academic Schools and Digital
Communications

32. Pain points
• Huge rewrite process – 350+ courses
• Template changed part way through process
• Template also used for course approval
• Consistency was hard to maintain
• How far does QA go?
• Welsh – 33% of courses

33. Lessons learned
• Agree template – and test it
• Set governance up early
• Check the focus of your rewrite – CMA vs
marketing
• Clarify processes and responsibilities
• Get a PM – and set out sensible timeframes

34. Wrap up
• Benefits
• Next steps

35. Benefits
• One source of course information achieved!
• Reuse of content in durable medium and offer
letter
• Risk of inaccuracy much lower
• No duplication of effort
• Fewer points of failure
• One design
• Mobile-friendly
• Bilingual
• Everything on www.cardiff.ac.uk

36. Next steps
• Two years at the same time
• Increase visibility of the process
• Improve content for marketing purposes
• Allow College Communications to edit (and
keep track of changes)
• Power the prospectus? Who knows?

37. Thank you