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Web Redesign Project
The University of Mississippi

Updates

Sept. 11, 2024

At present, five school or college sites are now online and more than 90+ other sites are in development.

In July, the Web Content and IT teams shared a message with communicators, marketers, and deans across the campus that the WordPress content management system will be decommissioned and all university websites hosted on WordPress will be shut down by July 1, 2025.

The following guidance was shared with all web publishers and editors in that same message:

What this means for you: 
  • If your site has already been migrated to Cascade, no action is necessary!
  • If you are responsible for a website that has not yet been fully migrated to Cascade, your site will be decommissioned on July 1, 2025. We encourage you to begin the process of preparing your site for migration by taking the steps outlined below.
  • If you are not sure if your site has been migrated to Cascade, we’re happy to advise! Shoot us an email and we’ll let you know!
To begin the process for migration:
  • All users must complete digital accessibility training before receiving access and credentials for Cascade. Register for training.
  • Upon completion of the training, request access to Cascade by completing this form and uploading your Digital Accessibility Training Certificate of Completion.
  • Upon receipt of your request, a member of our Web Content team will follow up with you directly. They’ll guide you through the completion of a sitemap, and provide training resources before granting access to the system.

 

December 12, 2023

Phase I of the website goes live! This phase includes:

  • Authoritative content, which includes the main olemiss.edu site
  • Faculty and staff profiles
  • Undergraduate academic program pages
  • Departmental landing pages

Fall 2023

  • The web content team has been working with the campus community to update profiles page photos and finalize content edits for Phase I sites.
  • The IT team worked to address and clean up several back-end development issues.
  • The core project team finalized its process to track technical and content issues for the new website, developed workflows to establish guidelines surrounding permissions and access to the new website, and made plans for the transition to a new website calendaring system for the campus.

Summer 2023

  • News migration testing is complete
  • Web content team is testing news sharing functionality
  • Web content team is reviewing faculty and staff profiles with OHO
  • Web content team is developing internal processes for troubleshooting
  • Web content team is working to develop standards for internal taxonomies and naming conventions
  • MarComm continues to create content and work with departments on campus in preparation for Phase I launch
  • OHO to handoff their work with the website mid-August

Spring 2023 

  • Web content team has been creating content for pages included in Phase I of launch
  • MarComm continues to update faculty and staff photos
  • OHO has been working on test migration for news migration
  • OHO working through bug fixes for news sharing and UM team to test
  • OHO is testing for faculty and staff profiles import and UM team will review test import
  • UM team working through calendar integrations
  • Microsite to be completed in June

January 2023

  • User acceptance testing has been completed and working to review issues
  • Back end development has been completed for the microsite and OHO is now working to complete front end layer
  • Project core team met with the Web Governance Council to discuss upcoming launch phases as well as how to improve administrative processes
  • Web Editor-in-Chief continues working with units across campus on content development

November 2022

  • User acceptance testing to continue through the middle of December
  • After user acceptance testing is completed, OHO will follow up with bug fixes
  • MarComm continues work on developing content
  • Microsite development to begin in December
  • MarComm continues updating faculty/staff photography
  • Project core team to have Web Governance Council meeting in December
  • Trainings for content publishers to be scheduled for late January/early February

October 2022 

  • User acceptance testing to begin in November
  • Microsite (assets and resources for users) design approval and development to begin in November
  • Working to schedule upcoming trainings in the spring semester for the campus-wide community
  • Main authoritative content is being developed

September 2022

  • OHO and the University core project team have reviewed what’s in progress as well as upcoming work
  • Contingency budget will be reviewed and confirmed
  • Working to confirm launch phases
  • Development work includes: roles and permissions, CMS template development, and third party integrations
  • QA testing (functional testing has taken place and browser and accessibility testing are up next)
  • UAT (user acceptance testing) and training
  • Content development and writing continues

May 2022

  • Series of content strategy workshops have taken place with content creators
  • Planning for content migration resources
  • Website rollout planning
  • Back end development taking place
  • Both the Web Advisory Committee and the Web Governance Council convened this month
  • Core project team continuously holding meetings with both academic and administrative departments to update them on the progress of the website redesign

April 2022

  • The content strategy and content rollout and socialization phases have been completed
  • Kickoff meeting occurred  for the microsite which will be a useful reference for content editors
  • Continued meetings with the broader campus community to begin content strategy planning
  • Preparation continues for content strategy workshops that are scheduled in May for content creators
  • Both the Web Advisory Committee and the Web Governance Council convened this month

February and March 2022

  • Project has moved to content strategy and content migration phases
  • Rollout and socialization plan presented to the core project team
  • Rollout presentations are beginning to be presented to the wider campus community
  • Initial meeting with site managers has taken place to give them an overview on web governance and what changes are being made with the transition to the new site
  • Content workshop (“train the trainer”) with core team and other key staff members from both UM&C and IT
  • Finalizing design applications and once completed, the core team will have content templates to begin work on content planning

January 2022

  • The Web Governance Council has convened for their inaugural meeting. This council was put in place based off of the governance document for the website redesign.
  • Finalizing templates
  • Design applications
  • Beginning work on content strategy and website rollout plan

December 2021

  • OHO Interactive finalized the web governance document and presented two different visual design concepts to the Core Project Team. The group will test the two concepts by sharing a survey with current and admitted students as well as alumni. The team also began work on the content matrix as well as presented an annotated file of the wireframes to the Core Project Team for review.
  • Information Technology co-hosted the first of many trainings with site managers and content creators from the campus community with WebAIM, a third-party non-profit entity based at Utah State University that specializes in web accessibility.  More than 250 site managers and web content creators were invited to the 6-hour training in early December.

November 2021

  • OHO Interactive presented multiple rounds of wireframes before finalizing. In addition, the team presented the first draft of web governance to the Core Project Team.

October 2021

  • OHO Interactive conducted research with current and prospective students to understand the best navigation bar options for the site and continued working toward accessibility compliance.

September 2021

  • Members of Core Project Team presented update on project to Deans, Directors, and Communicator Network for input and feedback.
  • OHO Interactive worked to finalize site map and build wireframes following creative kick off meeting.
  • OHO Interactive worked to finalize recommendations for site governance.

August 2021

  • Moving beyond research and discovery phase of the project.
  • Presented first and second round of site maps.
  • Presented high level road map to Senior Leadership Group.

July 2021

  • OHO continues to analyze results from the surveys that were sent earlier this summer to faculty, staff, current and prospective students, and alumni as they work toward creating the content strategy for the new site.

June 2021

  • Members of the core project team and OHO Interactive collaborate to send multiple surveys, host one-on-one sessions and workshops with faculty, staff, current and prospective students, and alumni to gain an understanding of user needs, experiences, and ideas. This input will inform the new site strategy and overall roadmap. In late June, OHO hosted workshops with more members of the campus community to gather thoughts about what the new olemiss.edu should look like.

May 2021

  • Phase I of the work (research and discovery) begins with OHO Interactive.
  • Representatives within University Marketing & Communications and Information Technology have completed one-on-one meetings with website points of contact within colleges, schools and units. Website points of contact are now in the process of working through their respective tech audits and are to complete that work by the end of May.

April 2021

  • Representatives within University Marketing & Communications and Information Technology begin one-on-one meetings with points of contact within colleges and schools as well as a handful of special programs and key units to share recommendations and findings from an SEO tech audit. Deadlines for work completion will be shared with each website POC.
  • Kick-off call with agency partner, OHO Interactive.

March 2021

  • Contract approved by IHL.
  • Representatives within University Marketing & Communications and Information Technology present plan about next steps to optimize content across key websites to points of contact within colleges and schools as well as a handful of special programs and key units across campus.

February 2021

  • Deans and Directors of colleges, schools and special programs asked to designate a website point of contact who will act as a liaison to make revisions and updates to their respective sites.

January 2021

  • Draft contract with preferred agency partner submitted to IHL.

December 2020

  • Contract negotiations begin with preferred agency partner.

November 2020

  • Website Advisory Committee interviews finalist agencies that respond to RFP.

October 2020

  • Website Advisory Committee reviews responses to website RFP.

August 2020

  • Website Advisory Committee formed, website RFP drafted and submitted.