1. & & YORK RESEARCH Research Communications Overview for ORU coordinators Elizabeth Monier-Williams—April 20, 2010

2. & YORK RESEARCH Launched www.yorku.ca/research in late Novemberwww.yorku.ca/research  Part of VPRI’s shift to online communications  Goals:  Provide a snapshot of research activity (depth/breadth)  Make it easy to find things (two to three clicks)  Promote our successes to key audiences  Support researchers through online tools and content  Engage visitors and encourage them to return  Summarize research content in one place (e.g., YFile, media releases, funding calls, etc.)  Make VPRI/ORS content easy to share Phase One: Launch

3. & YORK RESEARCH Phase Two A: If it is broke, fix it  Broken links and redirects  Consistency in ORS forms to support researchers  Resolving design issues (search, rotation, breadcrumb) Phase Two B: Blue Sky  Does the navigation meet our visitors’ needs?  What can we do to improve content flow?  What works? What doesn’t?  How can our content better-serve our audiences? Phase Two: Assessment

4. & YORK RESEARCH Analytics  Old site: 7,000 to 10,000 visits/month  New site: 15,000 visits/month  Repeated visitors are up  Bounce rate and time on site slowly improving  Referring sites and Google now main source of traffic  Most popular content, aside from index page:  ORU listing  Faculty research listing  Researcher support centre  Contact Us  Funding opportunities  Documents and forms  Research Ethics  News & Events Phase Two: Assessment

5. & YORK RESEARCH Visitors told us they wanted:  Research news, announcements, and multimedia  Funding and award information  Information about researchers  Online forms and news  Better navigation and coherence  Less text  Less scrolling (or at least sensible scrolling) Phase Three: Feedback

6. & YORK RESEARCH Formal survey will be sent to users once launch content has been updated to ask:  What works? What doesn’t?  What’s missing?  What makes you crazy? To avoid assumptions, it’s important to let users guide your decision-making. Especially when your organization is large and has a lot of jargon. Phase Three: Feedback

7. & YORK RESEARCH Things your ORU should be checking on the Research site:  Is your listing and link up to date?  Is your centre mentioned in other places on the site that would make sense? (e.g., Knowledge Mobilization)  Are your events featured in the central York U event database and tagged “Research Centre”?  Are you sending story content to YFile and/or to Research Communications?  Do you have news or grant results to feature in VPRI’s newsletter?  Do we have images you’d like to use?  Are you pushing content through social media channels? If so, are you using all of York’s tools? (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc.)  Do you have videos to share with a broader research community? What Does This Mean for You?

8. & YORK RESEARCH On your own site  Does your site link to yorku.ca/research appropriately?  Do you link to faculty and department pages? Do they link to you?  Do you track your web traffic?  Do you link to other centres with whom you do work, at York or elsewhere? Do they link to you?  When you make a link, do you use the “Click here” format or do you use descriptive link text?  Are you active on social media? What Does this Mean for You?

9. & YORK RESEARCH Summary of tools and expertise  ORU listing with links to your site and email address  Automated events feed  News listing  VPRI’s newsletter (subject to VP’s discretion)  Video posting  Twitter (YUResearch)  Analytics assistance, with a few SEO basics  Navigation and content portion of development  Web development coordination with UIT and VPUR What Does This Mean for You?

10. & YORK RESEARCH Please send me your thoughts and suggestions Elizabeth Monier-Williams Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation eamw@yorku.ca x21069 Thanks for Your Time