Were back.....

New Semester.

To create a student online website connected to Canvas and the union we must look at other universities that have done the same.

When looking at the University of Bristol's union website it occurred to me that updating the site on a regular basis would be a necessity, they have chosen to do it weekly, I think this would be an achievable goal for us as a team. The website consists of general news, polls and mailing lists, quick links, pod casts and updates on 'what’s on' at the union. This is a successful formula for Bristol and I believe that we would be able to maintain and generate the same level of news and information. To keep the site fresh with news we could re purpose Canvas stories and headline them on our site, add stories that didn't make into the paper and include other lighter stories i.e. fashion, entertainment, union announcements.

I also found that certain sections were important to include, on the Sheffield website and the Loughborough site they included news highlights, exhibitions of latest work, forums and an event calendar. They also had links to sister publications and podcasts As we discussed in class a forum may not be achievable, it is not used by all university websites so maybe it is not a necessity for us.

I definitely believe to create this balance between the union and the paper we must have sections that include

News highlights
Online exhibitions
Events calendar
Union news
Entertainment and lifestyle.

The main problem is creating a balance between connections with the paper and the union, we do not want the site to become more focused on one or the other, to strike this balance I believe we must become the bridge between the two. This website will be the link between the pod cast, paper, TV students and the union. Therefore we must include all these facets in our site.


I believe our website should include the lighter side of university life that the paper does not, by including relevant and up to date union news we can become a user friendly portal for students to keep informed of university news and entertainment.