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Profile Page Enhancements Help Faculty Showcase Publications, Research and More

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The University of Nebraska Omaha Web Teams (A combination of Information Technology Services and University Communications Digital Communications teams) collaborated with Academic Affairs and the Colleges to work with faculty on improving integrations and design of the Profile Page templates on unomaha.edu.

This project pulled in faculty feedback on fields within the Digital Measures tool that could be automatically synced and published to a professor’s page. These profile templates are also used by a variety of units for staff and student profiles - however - Digital Measures data is only for faculty, so the biggest enhancements will help faculty keep and update their profiles.

The new page format will go live on Nov. 28. Here’s a bit of a breakdown on the who, what, when and why of the project and a preview before going live later this month:

Why we’re working on this

This project hit the sweet spot both for our users and our faculty. Faculty wanted to be able to control more of their profile without bugging web leads within their college to be able to add things like publications and research. At the same time, through user surveys and web analytics, users have told us they want to be able to find detailed information on faculty around their research interests and teaching so they can help find a potential match as a prospective student, especially graduate students, as well as potential faculty and other staff searching to come to UNO.

Example of the New Profile Template

Sarah Edwards Profile Page in QA

How we did it

After prioritizing the project in March 2018, the web team (which includes members of University Communications and Information Technology Services) partnered with Academic Affairs to facilitate faculty and college feedback on potential information to be included in the update profile pages. This included several sessions led by Joyce Crockett, that incorporated faculty from all six colleges as well as some associate deans and web leads.

After gathering the feedback, the web team, led by Sophie Ibrahimi, mapped all the Digital Measures fields and began the process of integration with the Cascade Content Management System, while designing new templates based on the added information and integrations.

In the fall of 2018, testing began and the teams worked with faculty members to update their new Digital Measures profile pages and tested the unomaha.edu pages in a test environment before going live.

What’s New

Many of the new fields were already in Digital Measures. But an enhanced profile page in Digital Measures helps make it easier for faculty to see what’s going to be on their page.

Additionally, the amount of time it takes to update a faculty profile page was changed from overnight to almost instant.

The types of information now included in the profile:

  • Biography
  • Teaching Interests
  • Research Interests
  • Service Summary
  • Awards and Honors
  • Publications
  • Externally Funded Research
  • Artistic and Professional Performances and Exhibits
  • Department, College, and University Professional Community
  • Media Contributions
  • Consulting
  • Administrative Assignments
  • Additional Information (Pulled from Cascade CMS)

In addition to the additional fields, designers removed the left sidebar and replaced it with a floating right bar that has fields and information available so users can jump to a certain section. You can see here, users can quickly jump or choose to scan the page as necessary. There are still breadcrumbs available, and a back-to-top icon (on every page at the bottom) to navigate as well.

Next Steps

Not included in the Profile Page 2.0 project was integrations with staff photos and other data inside our outside our Digital Measures tool or generic directory. A future project to look at our directory and photo integrations possibilities is on deck in 2019.

Most areas have web leads to assist you if you have questions about your college or department web pages and sections, including profile pages. The Digital Communications teams (ITS, UComm, and the web leads) led by the Digital Communications Executive Committee, are building out the Phase 3 Enhancement Roadmap for 2019.

The roadmap for 2019 includes major projects such as:

  • Web accessibility upgrades and enhancements.
  • Department, and Centers Homepage template refreshes.
  • Majors and Programs Page refresh.
  • Further development and integration with the employee directory, college directories and profile pages.

See the full list of roadmaps

If you have additional questions or project ideas, please contact your lead, or University Communications through Start Your Project.