The current EdWeb enhancements phase will comprise of six development iterations which are scheduled to complete in July 2016. Recent deployments included additional branding space for business units to add logos and homepage enhancements.

Project progress in January and February

The most recent deployment in January focused on subsite branding and global footer enhancements as well as bug fixes and security updates, specifically:

• the ability to add a logo into the banner area
• the ability to edit homepage panels
• deletion of assets no longer breaks pages where the asset appeared
• updates to the content of the global footer
• a variety of other bug fixes and security updates.

The next deployment on 15 February 2016 focused on homepage enhancements, including:

• University homepage requirements
• dynamic content panels on homepages
• support for custom code panels on homepages
• More flexibility to add forms and multimedia to homepage panels
• additional presentation options

These homepage enhancements have been developed in collaboration with and funded by Communications and Marketing to enable us to build the first University homepage. This additional functionality will also be available to all site homepages so that the whole University web publishing community can benefit. Further work for the University homepage is planned for June and July.In addition, this deployment included essential adjustments to colour contrasts to meet accessibility requirements and minor updates to the design theme of the CMS interface.

Future EdWeb development

The next deployment is planned for mid-March and will include:

• ability to schedule publication for automatic publication and removal of content
• ‘Embargoed’ content support so that content can be hidden from the University community until it’s published and goes live
• Reusable external content asset – for example, the ability to include fee details in programme information and reuse it in multiple pages.

Maintaining the Agile approach to EdWeb development, means we are moving to a continuous improvement or Evolutionary Site Redesign (ESR) model for the future, in contrast to the traditional launch and leave approach. Development will progress on an iterative basis enabling the system to evolve gradually, staying relevant and responsive to new technology and trends.

Development road map

As with the first phase of EdWeb development, future enhancements will be planned and guided by a road map. To enable a more collaboration and to be able to share the road map beyond the project team, we are looking at ways to make it available more widely.

New funding approach

To enable this continuous development model we have changed the way we approach funding EdWeb development. We have widened our funding sources to include looking to Colleges, Schools and business units to fund development in addition to central core funding.

This will bring benefits to these additional funders in terms of the prioritisation of developments and maximising the efficiency of available resources as we identify areas of common interest to prioritise and share costs.

At this stage we are gathering requirements from Colleges, Schools and the EdWeb user group as well as Requests for Change submitted to the Change Advisory Board.

What is the Change Advisory Board and how do I submit a request for change for EdWeb?