RADFORD -- Radford University’s website will get an upgrade over the next year with the assistance of Digital Wave Technologies, Inc. a Philadelphia-based company that specializes in website design for colleges and universities. The project kick-off and discovery phase of the project is set to get underway in early December, according to Danny Kemp, RU’s Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO).

Websites play a key role in everything from admissions and recruiting to reputation management and institutional advancement. More than that, however, they serve as the nucleus of an enterprise, providing essential support for a college or university’s educational and business operations.

“To help optimize our successes, we must maintain an attractive, highly functional website that will enable a variety of internal and external users to efficiently acquire and share information as they relate to our institution,” said Kemp.

Plans call for the RU website to be redesigned as part of the project, which is expected to take approximately 12 months to complete. The overall goal of the project is to develop an integrated website that efficiently meets the business and communication needs of the university. The new site will convey a unified university “brand” experience through a common graphical interface and a consistent approach to site navigation. Efficiency and functionality will guide the approach to establishing information architecture.

Charles L. Hayes, a retired professor of theatre, has been named project coordinator and will serve as the primary liaison between the Digital Wave project development team and a broad base of university stakeholders. Hayes, who served as the faculty athletics representative for the university’s NCAA athletic program for 13 years and played a key role in the development of the university’s 7-17 strategic plan, will immediately begin organizing a series of stakeholder meetings as part of the project.

The website development project will involve an extensive discovery phase, in which Digital Wave will conduct a strategic analysis of the university’s current site. Stakeholder perceptions identified through extensive interviews with key decision-makers and end-users from the faculty, staff and students will guide the development process.

Hayes is in the process of establishing a stakeholder team that will include representatives from the offices of admissions, student affairs, academic affairs, advancement, university relations, financial aid and several other university offices. That stakeholder team will more broadly engage other members of the university community in the project and work closely with Digital Wave, Inc. throughout the development.

Once the project development team completes its evaluation of the existing site and determines the functionality required as a result of stakeholder research, work will begin on the design and architecture of RU’s new site.

The scope of the project will involve the creation of a core site, which will include the complete development of a new homepage, and sites for the Offices of Admissions, Financial Aid, Registrar’s Office, Student Accounts, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs. The work will also include the development of several microsites, including Alumni, Development, the Office of the President, the Board of Visitors, and University Relations.

A microsite will also be developed for the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences and the English Department that could serve as a possible template for other academic departments to emulate.

The university’s website is so vast that the process of completing the entire upgrade will be evolutionary, according to Kemp. Part of the project will be the procurement of a Content Management System (CMS), which will help offices and departments from across campus modify their sites and maintain current content in a way that will be consistent with the overarching site development work conducted by Digital Wave.

Discussions and planning have been underway for several months regarding the need to upgrade the university’s website, according to Kemp. The need for the project was articulated in the university’s 7-17 strategic plan. For more information about the website development project, contact Chuck Hayes at chayes@radford.edu