The following information provides some resources for unomaha.edu website leads throughout the university and various information on access, content strategy, and requests.
Governance
The University of Nebraska Omaha's (UNO) digital presence is the public face of the university. As such, it should:
- Be audience-centered (student first) and have a consistent brand
- All communications channels should have a content strategy, be easily accessed, and secure
- Specific to the website, it should have an intuitive architecture and be optimized for search engines
To best showcase UNO as coordinated and forward-thinking, our digital presence must be consistent and easy to use.
View the Digital Communications Governance Policy
View the list of digital communications services we offer.
Campus Collaboration and Structure
UNO's digital communication will be directed and maintained by the following:
Cascade CMS and Access
The CMS login can be accessed at cms.unomaha.edu for those who have unomaha.edu email addresses and have been granted access by a site administrator. Access must be requested by the college's communicator or the person who has been selected as that site's web lead.
Cascade training is required prior to receiving access to Cascade CMS. Contact your web lead and they can help initiate training.
The Digital Communications team oversees and has access to all pages in the CMS. It includes the Director of Digital Communications, Digital Content Strategist, and Digital Technology Specialist, and Digital Content Coordinator.
They are also responsible for the top-level sections and pages (About UNO, Academics, Admissions, Engagement, Research, Alumni, and Athletics) as well as University Policies.
The professionals on this team:
- have effective oversight of all content
- know website users' tasks and goals
- work in a collaborative and interdisciplinary manner
- know their field and know how to write for it
College Communicators in each of the six academic colleges as well as the library, CEC, and International Programs manage their own sites and sub-sites with guidance and support from DigiComm.
DigiComm will work with the communicator and their publishers to update sites, and only when asked or errors or issues come up, will they fix them. Site Audits (see below) are also done periodically.
Below is a breakdown of things to remember when considering content:
Strategic Publishing vs. College/Department/Units
Review if this is Strategic Content
Before content is published, it's important web approvers think about the following:
- Who’s the target audience?
- Does this content cover some need or task for this target audience? Which?
- Does this content cover a strategic goal for the University of Nebraska Omaha? Which?
- Describe how you imagine this content will be found and used by the user.
- Why is the website the right channel for this content?
- Is the content accessible to all individuals, including those with disabilities?
Avoid the Silo
- It can result in silo-based publishing. This could lead to organization-centric writing and duplication as different sites create the same content.
- Many content authors like to publish their own content. This can result in too much content, confusing navigation, and search. As the site grows bigger, it becomes harder to manage and review.
How to be Successful
- Work collaboratively and in an interdisciplinary manner with Digital Communications when content is deemed strategic.
- Get regular feedback from others who are not part of your college or unit, and give regular feedback to other teams.
- Focus on top tasks of the users, and where they would likely look, not the organization.
View the Digital Communications Governance Guidelines and Details (PDF)
Training Resources
Users receive Cascade CMS training before they can update a site. You can access the Cascade CMS training on Bridge and watch the training videos at anytime. The following documents and web pages also are extremely helpful and should be reviewed prior to working in Cascade.
- Cascade Basics (PDF)
- Cascade CMS Tutorials
- Writing Style Guide
- Images Sizes for the Web
- Web Accessibility
There's also more information at the Cascade CMS Hannon Hill Knowledge Base.
Accessibility
Creating an accessible website means working from established standards to strive toward web pages that are usable by the widest audience possible.
Read more about UComm's initiative to ensure uomaha.edu meets accessibility standards.
Site Audits and Inventories
Digital Communications web team uses Siteimprove to audit sites periodically. It is recommended site administrators fix broken links and misspellings promptly. For more information on getting started with a specific site audit or analysis, Start Your Project under web request and enhancement.
Analytics
UNO uses Google Analytics to provide traffic information on its websites and applications. Current web leads have access to Google Analytics and can request that UComm provide access for other web users.
For more information, access, and other requests, visit our digital analytics page.