The UX Service has begun a new six-month project recognising the importance of online staff profile content. Our project will research current use of profiles, learn staff needs for profile content and ideate ways to optimise display of online profile content.

‘The Role of Profiles’ research project was initiated with a kick-off meeting ran by the project team and attended by staff from across the University in a range of roles.

Our initial meeting set out the project background, goals, planned research methodology and activities, and provided insights from discovery research findings. This blog post contains details of our planned research and milestones.

Full project details, including project brief, scope and deliverables, are available on the project website: The Role of Profiles: WPS 021

Recognising the value of staff profile content and seeking to make the most of it

The University website currently contains a ‘profiles’ provision for staff to use to publish content about themselves and the work they do. This content is very valuable and sought-after by various visitors to the University website – including prospective and current students, prospective staff, industry partners and academic and research collaborators. Every member of University staff can create a profile for their content, however, not all staff do so, and many profiles are under-used, with minimal content or out-of-date information.

The move to EdWeb2, the new web publishing platform, has prompted the Role of Profiles project – to research the current use of staff profiles, to understand staff needs for publishing their profile content online and to explore options to optimise the presentation and management of this content. It is hoped that, following the project recommendations, an improved profile provision can be implemented which staff want to use to publish and manage content about themselves and their work to reach their intended audiences.

Research questions: what are profiles like now, and how could they be improved?

The research to be completed by the UX Service team and colleagues focuses on two questions in alignment with the project goals:

1. How are staff profiles used currently?
2. How could we improve staff profiles?

Framing the research in the form of these questions adopts the maxim that an understanding of the current state is the best way to surface evidence to steer the direction of future design, to ensure ideation for a new provision for staff profiles is rooted within how staff typically want to publish, use and manage their content, and responds to the limitations they report with the current profile provision.

Research methodology: activities to gather quantitative and qualitative data

To address the research questions, the team are adopting a mixed methods approach.

Examining existing EdWeb profiles

Before the move to EdWeb2, staff profiles were published in EdWeb. Extracting data from this system provides details of the number of live profiles presented on the University website, as well as figures indicating the frequency and use of fields within staff profiles.

Profile pages in EdWeb

Analysis of profile data associated with University usernames (UUNs)

Profiles published in EdWeb are typically associated with UUNs of University staff members, meaning profile data extracted from EdWeb provide insight into job roles, grades, Colleges, Schools and departments of the profile-holders.

Circulating a survey for staff to complete about their profiles

To supplement information extracted from University systems, it was important to reach staff themselves to gather information about their use of profiles. Surveying staff enables collection of quantitative data through closed questions (for example ‘Do you have a staff profile on the University of Edinburgh website?’) as well as qualitative data in the form of free-text comments. The survey also serves as a way to gather further insight from staff, by asking staff to provide contact details if they are willing to be interviewed. Making use of existing networks to circulate the survey ensures the widest, most representative response from staff.

Interviewing staff about their profiles

Recognising the specificity of staff profiles, and appreciating that the needs a staff member has for their profile will depend on many contextual factors, interviews with individual staff are a way to learn about topics including:

• The content they wish to publish about themselves and their work
• How they share their profile content
• Audiences they are seeking to reach with their profiles
• Circumstances prompting them to update their online profiles
• Limitations and restrictions they experience with their existing profiles
• Expectations for the presentation style of their online profiles

Data from interviews provide nuanced detail relating to individual use of profiles, and when analysed together, reveal common themes relating to staff requirements for a future profile provision.

Reviewing staff profiles from other universities

Optimising the presentation of staff profile content is a challenge faced by the wider Higher Education sector, therefore a review of the ways competitor universities display staff profile content provides food for thought to ideate on possible improvements.

Project timeline: activities and milestones leading to project conclusion

The project is due to conclude on 28 July 2025, therefore a series of activities and milestones have been mapped out accordingly.

Planned schedule of activities:

• Survey circulated to staff: start of January
• Completion of desk research (including examination of EdWeb data and competitor analysis): mid-February
• Staff interviews conducted: iteratively, until end of March
• Staff interview data analysed: end of April
• Collective research findings consolidated: end of May
• Draft recommendations written: start of June
• Final report and recommendations published: end of July.

Milestone meetings:

• Project kick-off: Tuesday 21 January, 10:30am to 12pm
• Project update: Tuesday 11 March, 10am to 11:30am
• Draft report presentation: Tuesday 3 June, 11am to 12:30pm

Communication of project progress and outputs

Details of the project’s progress, leading to the final report with recommendations, are primarily being disseminated as blog posts. Interested parties are invited to attend milestone meetings, which are being recorded and made available on MediaHopper.

Read about insights from discovery research in the related blog post:

Current usage of University staff profiles: Initial insights from The Role of Profiles project

Access recorded meetings on MediaHopper (staff log-in required)