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About Us & Introduction

History & Purpose

Originally developed from digital skills teaching materials from 2014, College Websites launched in 2017. It is designed to fill the operational knowledge gap between digital practitioners and senior leaders. It provides sectorwide overview of performance standards by defining assessment metrics and identifying and championing instances best practice from within the tertiary and adult education sector. These examples of best practice are often hidden outliers and can only be revealed through a process of methodically mapping the sector’s 440+ websites. These sectorwide reviews have covered individual service areas, technical standards, visitor traffic, and compliance with regulation, all of which are straightforward to optimise but are not sufficiently significant for senior leaders to micro manage.

Havering College logoThe inspiration to provide live dashboards for each of the UK's 440+ tertiary and adult education provider was by the then Head of Marketing at Havering College Tony Wittridge in 2016. The tracking of sectorwide site traffic using the now discontinued Alexa service went all the way back to training learners about marketing performance in 2015. Working closely with colleagues across Havering College, now part of New City College, especially Admissions, Apprentices, and Libraries, exposed the absence of any methodical research on digital presentation of support services.


Us

We are a small team of technical researchers based in central Hackney, with one full-time employee, Jed Keenan, and a small group of stringers. We have undertaken research projects in a wide range of sectors including the local government, higher education, and international diplomacy, but our principal focus continues to be on the development of the tertiary and adult education sector. The critical importance of digital skills for every social, commercial, political and cultural enterprise, keeps us focussed on supporting the pivotal role of the tertiary and adult education sector in digital skills training.


Reports

Like-for-like comparisons of the 440+ tertiary and adult education sector websites provides phenomenal insight into the distribution curve of technical and operational practice. Methodically reviewing all websites within a sector also unearths outliers of exceptional practice. Identifying extraordinary examples of individual Library Service managers using software in unique original ways, or E-Learning managers designing and operating a VLE in innovative and engaging ways, benefits the whole sector and its learners.

ESFA LofoLearning from these outliers and defining the metrics that can be codified to define minimum operational and technical standards supports the effective line-management of the staff delegated with responsibility for undertaking these tasks. What is often surprising is how contentious implementing best practice turns out to be. Live Chat, a Site Map, and even compliance with ESFA regulations are critical for achieving service optimisation and none take much time effort or resources.

Lots of these reports are out of date, being 3 to 4 years old, which is where longitudinal comparisons become relevant. Seeing development, or regression, over time and the rate of change over time enables extrapolation and prediction for achieving sectorwide optimisation of service. London South East Colleges 360TourFunding being what it is, and the current seller's market for labour, does not make the timeframe short, but it should be. All of these small quick and easy projects have a low/no cost, and they are all within the technical capacity of delegated staff. The issue is simply the project management of quick no-hassle wins. For example, Open Events have been transformed by the lockdown, with almost all providers now offering an augmented reality virtual tour, but in February 2019 it was only 9. What was revealed by necessity was that it was low cost and not particularly onerous, but an emergency situation was required to initiate these unplanned small projects.

Content Reviews General Reviews Technical Reviews
Financial Documents
30 January 2022
Financial Statements 2020/21
31 January 2022
Domain Details
Underway
Virtual Learning Environments
5 August 2019
Facebook Logos
26 January 2022
SEO Formatting & Equality of Access
8 February 2019
Open Events
11 March 2019
Principal Corporate Logos
25 January 2022
Staff Recruitment Systems
20 April 2018
Libraries Offer
1 August 2018
Twitter Logos
6 January 2022
Corporate Logos
19 February 2018
Employers Offer
25 July 2018
LinkedIn Logos
19 November 2021
Website Operation Systems
10 December 2017
Alumni Offer
2 July 2018
YouTube Logos
9 November 2021
Basic Operational Awareness
9 December 2017
Contact Us Pages
20 April 2018
Principals & Service Heads
3 September 2021
Live Chat Operators
1 December 2017
Apprenticeships Offer
9 January 2018
Instagram Logos
1 June 2021
Sector Agencies Basic Operational Awareness
24 November 2017
Social Media (All the Home Page Buttons)
24 November 2017
Inspection Reports
1 January 2021
Footer Affiliation Logos
9 August 2017
Enrichment Offer
24 November 2017
University Marketing Faculties
20 May 2020
 
People People People
24 November 2017
Wikipedia Articles
2 July 2018
 
Footer Affiliate Organisations
9 August 2017
   

Feedback

The most frequent response by colleagues in the tertiary and adult education sector right across the UK has been to reach out to ask for recommendations for contract developers and guidance on rebuilding the corporate website. The reply is generally that website development is iterative but core is full integration over any other consideration with MIS, CRM, Eventbrite, a Mailer and Google Analytics. The greater level of technical sophistication caused by almost two years home working has really helped to lift the status of digital projects.

From South Devon to Edinburgh and Belfast to East Kent and Edinburgh the direct feedback has been really positive. There has been two instances of people being unhappy about unflattering data, and one complaint over perceived copyright infringement. This website relies on Section 30 of the 1988 Copyright, Designs & Patents Act to be able to show content that is owned by tertiary and adult education providers.


Google+ DN Colleges Group Google+ Henley College Google+ Sutton College Google+ Totton College Google+ Tyne Metropolitan College Google+ Suffolk One Sixth Form College

Conclusions

There are both negative and positive summations from undertaking these longitudinal mapping exercises of corporate websites:

The negative quite often there is an absence among staff and senior leaders of basic digital skills and/or quality assurance. Thankfully this has been substantially diminished by changed work patterns prompted by the Covid lockdown, but there is still a visibly obvious issue. For example, it seems indicative that there are 6 college websites still on 1 February 2022 present the defunct social media platform Google+ which was discounted 4 years ago, three of them prominently on the homepage.⏵

The positive is that, located nationwide and throughout the sector, there are expert specialists that are achieving and maintaining world class standards of work. Optimised SEO and accessibility, innovative Library management tools, and presenting Governors, senior leaders, faculty & support staff, and elected student reps to a standard that is better than any University. This is an invaluable way of setting attainable project targets for staff. It is also a practical and effective method that is then both emulated and taught as part of every digital skills formal curriculum and informal enrichment workshop.

Jed Keenan Naming Media Files is SEO 101

Jed Keenan  

Jed has been an associate lecturer and trainer of adults of all abilities and traditions for over 8 years. He is a Digital Skills Specialist and L&D Consultant.
Before working in education Jed worked for 20 years in television production, post-production, and transmissionthen switching careers by studying community development and public policy for 4 years at Birkbeck College. At Birkbeck he was elected the Birkbeck Students' Union Sabbatical Education Officer and practised by volunteering to teach website hosting, building, content production, audience building and performance monitoring to about 4,000 adults of all ages, all traditions and all abilities from around the world.
Jed's favourite digital operations books are:
♥ Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think!
♥ Ahava Leibtag's The Digital Crown
♥ Nathalie Nahai's Webs of Influence

Contact Us Anytime

020 8528 3135 | 079 5096 3069
info@collegewebsites.ac.uk
Hackney Picture House
270 Mare Street, London E8 1HE
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Google Data Studio LogoLive Data Studio Reports

There are four live dashboards demonstrating some of the capability of Data Studio to present the test data and general effectiveness of website marketing and operations:

►General Dashboard

►Visitors List

 ►Top 100 Visitors List

 ►Visitor Filtering

About Us

Originally developed from digital skills teaching materials from 2014, College Websites launched in 2017. It is designed to fill the operational knowledge gap between digital practitioners and senior leaders. It provides sectorwide overview of performance standards by defining assessment metrics and identifying and championing instances best practice from within the tertiary and adult education sector. These examples of best practice are often hidden outliers and can only be revealed through a process of methodically mapping the sector’s 440+ websites. These sectorwide reviews have covered individual service areas, technical standards, visitor traffic, and compliance with regulation, all of which are straightforward to optimise but are not sufficiently significant for senior leaders to micro manage.

Havering College logoThe inspiration to provide live dashboards for each of the UK's 440+ tertiary and adult education provider was by the then Head of Marketing at Havering College Tony Wittridge in 2016. The tracking of sectorwide site traffic using the now discontinued Alexa service went all the way back to training learners about marketing performance in 2015. Working closely with colleagues across Havering College, now part of New City College, especially Admissions, Apprentices, and Libraries, exposed the absence of any methodical research on digital presentation of support services.


Us

We are a small team of technical researchers based in central Hackney, with one full-time employee, Jed Keenan, and a small group of stringers. We have undertaken research projects in a wide range of sectors including the local government, higher education, and international diplomacy, but our principal focus continues to be on the development of the tertiary and adult education sector. The critical importance of digital skills for every social, commercial, political and cultural enterprise, keeps us focussed on supporting the pivotal role of the tertiary and adult education sector in digital skills training.


Reports

Like-for-like comparisons of the 440+ tertiary and adult education sector websites provides phenomenal insight into the distribution curve of technical and operational practice. Methodically reviewing all websites within a sector also unearths outliers of exceptional practice. Identifying extraordinary examples of individual Library Service managers using software in unique original ways, or E-Learning managers designing and operating a VLE in innovative and engaging ways, benefits the whole sector and its learners.

Learning from these outliers and defining the metrics that can be codified to define minimum operational and technical standards supports the effective line-management of the staff delegated with responsibility for undertaking these tasks. What is often surprising is how contentious implementing best practice turns out to be. Live Chat, a Site Map, and even compliance with ESFA regulations are critical for achieving service optimisation and none take much time effort or resources.

ESFA Lofo

Lots of these reports are out of date, being 3 to 4 years old, which is where longitudinal comparisons become relevant. Seeing development, or regression, over time and the rate of change over time enables extrapolation and prediction for achieving sectorwide optimisation of service. Funding being what it is, and the current seller's market for labour, does not make the timeframe short, but it should be. All of these small quick and easy projects have a low/no cost, and they are all within the technical capacity of delegated staff. The issue is simply the project management of quick no-hassle wins. For example, Open Events have been transformed by the lockdown, with almost all providers now offering an augmented reality virtual tour, but in February 2019 it was only 9. What was revealed by necessity was that it was low cost and not particularly onerous, but an emergency situation was required to initiate these unplanned small projects.

London South East Colleges 360Tour


Feedback

The most frequent response by colleagues in the tertiary and adult education sector right across the UK has been to reach out to ask for recommendations for contract developers and guidance on rebuilding the corporate website. The reply is generally that website development is iterative but core is full integration over any other consideration with MIS, CRM, Eventbrite, a Mailer and Google Analytics. The greater level of technical sophistication caused by almost two years home working has really helped to lift the status of digital projects.

From South Devon to Edinburgh and Belfast to East Kent and Edinburgh the direct feedback has been really positive. There has been two instances of people being unhappy about unflattering data, and one complaint over perceived copyright infringement. This website relies on Section 30 of the 1988 Copyright, Designs & Patents Act to be able to show content that is owned by tertiary and adult education providers.


Conclusions

There are both negative and positive summations from undertaking these longitudinal mapping exercises of corporate websites:

The negative quite often there is an absence among staff and senior leaders of basic digital skills and/or quality assurance. Thankfully this has been substantially diminished by changed work patterns prompted by the Covid lockdown, but there is still a visibly obvious issue. For example, it seems indicative that there are 6 college websites still on 1 February 2022 present the defunct social media platform Google+ which was discounted 4 years ago, three of them prominently on the homepage.

Google+ DN Colleges GroupGoogle+ Henley College Google+ Sutton College Google+ Totton College
Google+ Suffolk One Sixth Form College Google+ Tyne Metropolitan College

The positive is that, located nationwide and throughout the sector, there are expert specialists that are achieving and maintaining world class standards of work. Optimised SEO and accessibility, innovative Library management tools, and presenting Governors, senior leaders, faculty & support staff, and elected student reps to a standard that is better than any University. This is an invaluable way of setting attainable project targets for staff. It is also a practical and effective method that is then both emulated and taught as part of every digital skills formal curriculum and informal enrichment workshop.

The Monthly Traffic Rankings, Website Performance Trend Line & VLEs

July 2019 Alexa Website Traffic Rankings

https://www.collegewebsites.ac.uk/latest-data-reports/july-2019-alexa-rankings

All Colleges should want their websites to be ranked in the UK top 50,000. Over the last 32 months of monthly monitoring the top quartile is. There is a slight correlation with budgets but too mild to explain the cause of some Colleges attract more new and returning site visitors, and therefore more students and commercial clients than other Colleges.

There are many blog posts that answer the question of increasing site traffic generally, but specialised guidance is unhelpfully just as generalised:

Incorporate Social … Be Different

The easiest and, I argue, the most important method of increasing volume of College website traffic is to simply increase the frequency of current students accessing the College VLE from the website. It seems like artificial inflation but doesn't retention of current students on next level courses happens through the website application process?

I also suggest that the sections on the enrichment offer and student support service provide participation and engagement portals on the website.

Finally, I suggest starting a new community outreach programme offering free intermediate and advanced digital skills classes and open workshops. This offer would include an embedded booking system preferably Eventbrite for the wider public profile. It turns out “Incorporate Social … Be Different” isn't such bad advice after all, and that taking a lead and facilitating public forums really does work.

July 2019 Alexa Website Traffic Rankings

https://www.collegewebsites.ac.uk/latest-data-reports/july-2019-alexa-rankings

All Colleges should want their websites to be ranked in the UK top 50,000. Over the last 32 months of monthly monitoring the top quartile is. There is a slight correlation with budgets but too mild to explain the cause of some Colleges attract more new and returning site visitors, and therefore more students and commercial clients than other Colleges.

College July 2019 Alexa Performance against 2017/18 Financial Statement Income

▲ Of 188 College Websites with UK Traffic Data the trend line's shallow incline shows a slight performance correlation with 2017/18 Income level.

There are many blog posts that answer the question of increasing site traffic generally, but specialised guidance is unhelpfully just as generalised:

Incorporate Social … Be Different

The easiest and, I argue, the most important method of increasing volume of College website traffic is to simply increase the frequency of current students accessing the College VLE from the website. It seems like artificial inflation but doesn't retention of current students on next level courses happens through the website application process?

I also suggest that the sections on the enrichment offer and student support service provide participation and engagement portals on the website.

Finally, I suggest starting a new community outreach programme offering free intermediate and advanced digital skills classes and open workshops. This offer would include an embedded booking system preferably Eventbrite for the wider public profile. It turns out “Incorporate Social … Be Different” isn't such bad advice after all, and that taking a lead and facilitating public forums really does work.

Here's Why

Digital performance is best and most quickly optimised by broadening digital skills. Managers, faculty members, support staff, agency staff and students all having greater knowledge about the development of digital platforms, authoring expert content and testing site and content performance is critically important. More broadly, supporting the wider community to build new social, commercial, cultural and political enterprise websites is great for increasing site traffic.

I have met thousands of adults with widely diverse experiences, backgrounds and traditions that have all wanted a website but lack basic digital knowledge and have been burnt by website service providers. All have found that meeting and working mutually on resolving issues and developing their offers has had the greatest benefit. Many of them are active digital and word of mouth advocates on behalf of the public forum and its organisers, as well as having ambition and capacity to achieve great things. I have met hundreds of students and colleagues that also want to start something new, need to build a destination for their marketing, and find it really useful to meet and to work mutually with fellow students and staff to resolve any issues and to develop their online offers.


Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)

https://www.collegewebsites.ac.uk/content-review-samples/vles

This is a big project interrupted by presenting at the University of Liverpool Digital Inclusion Policy & Research Conference on funding Colleges to deliver digital skills training as both an enrichment offer to all students and in open workshops to the wider community.

The results so far reviewing 440 VLEs are that most are in serious need of basic development work. The role digital engagement with current students has in retention, enhancing word of mouth reputation, increasing attendance and improving academic outcomes is, on this metrics particularly, massively undervalued. For a handful of Colleges their VLE does achieve a minimum standard of development but for almost all of them they fail to reach this minimum standard.

It isn't difficult to complete a minimum development project, just see the College VLE you like, or the elements of a couple of VLEs and simply set this as the goal. The low/no cost VLE templates are straightforward to update, low/no cost extensions uploaded and populated, and a graphic designer takes only a couple of days to produce a suite of images and graphics.


too many, a blank login is all there is, or a blank Moodle template, or graphics by untrained/unqualified staff (even in Colleges teaching graphic design) and placeholder modules such as empty calendars. Many of the decisions about the VLE were taken years back and nobody has added VLE development on to the agenda and scheduled the time to finish an uncompleted task. Millions of students assume that this is the apex of digital offers, this is what an education provider is able to achieve, can there be any institutions capable of better?

What digital development projects do you want to do? What projects can I be involved in, help to support or take the lead on? How about building a Cvent Student App integrated into ProSolution MIS? Or producing live performance data on departmental dashboards?T

This last part should also be available to current students as part of the enrichment offer and include keyboard shortcuts, cPanel website hosting, Joomla/Drupal CMS website building and extension directories, free online tools and browser plugins, WYSIWYG HTML editing, image editing and file management (PNGs for all of your logos, file titles all SEO every time), Google Search Console, Analytics, and Data Studio.