As part of the introduction of the new Content Management System, EdWeb, the University Website Programme would like to research the introduction of features to facilitate easier interaction between the website visitor and the University. The most obvious of these features would be greater integration of social media within the system.

We would aim to use our existing knowledge surrounding the current social media buttons in Polopoly, which would allow us to research and implement ways to offer visitors to University websites an easy to use link to social media. In doing so, we will raise the profile of the University social media channels, thereby promoting the profile of the institution and shaping the online student experience.

We also want to encourage visitor interaction with the web publisher through content rating functionality. Facilitating such feedback (potentially as simply as a rating scale or thumbs up/down) provides a low-effort means for web publishers to understand whether their content is effective, and where to channel their (typically) limited web management resource, to bring maximum benefit to the website visitor experience. By cross referencing content rating data with page view data, web publishers have a powerful insight into priority areas for website enhancement.

Focussing on website content that is receiving a low approval rating from readers provides the opportunity to reduce the number of unnecessary enquiries, and in areas such as IT self help, reduce support costs.

As the University aims to further its position as a leader in online distance learning, social media interaction could become a key tool in supporting these students, in addition to those on campus. Introducing such features to EdWeb would help to connect the University websites more closely with both official social media profiles, and those of academic staff members. The hope is that by researching access to social media channels through EdWeb, we would build on our user community and encourage interaction with these different channels. This would contribute to the unique Edinburgh offer.

Since EdWeb is based in the Drupal CMS platform, a variety of social media sharing and user feedback modules are available through its open source community. The aim of this project is to research the available solutions, while evaluating the usage and scope of controls for social media and user feedback integration within websites, as well as managing any design considerations. Upon reaching conclusions, we would then set respective requirements for any necessary EdWeb enhancements and implement them.

Project Cost: 6 month PhD intern 0.2 FTE (£2,750). 2 month design resource at Grade 7 0.2 FTE (£550). Development cost pending on social media usage conclusion and module evaluation.​