• New main UofL website��

Students, faculty, staff and community partners can now more easily find important information on UofL’s , which launched just in time for start of the 2024-2025 academic year. This effort is part of the university’s . The site includes overview pages for departments and strategic areas linking back to their existing sites. All other websites will launch on the new Drupal system by Nov. 22.

• Building updates throughout campus

Major progress has been made on our next-generation engineering hub, and many of our longstanding facilities have upgrades aimed at improving their functionality, comfort and safety. Among these include the renovation of the Ernst Hall auditorium, with a new stage, seats, flooring, painting and lights. The corridor also received a refresh of lobbies and other student spaces. Work on an addition will get underway this academic year. The project, expected to be completed in summer 2025, will provide additional space for students to study and collaborate, along with more office space and archive space to preserve the history of the university and Commonwealth of Kentucky.

• Cardinal Marching Band to debut new uniforms
  

  

The will return to L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium this fall with a brand-new look.��Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, the band will step out in new uniforms. The design showcases a two-toned red and white jacket with a metallic gradient sash, accentuated by a small red gothic “L” on the right sleeve. Positioned prominently, the iconic Cardinal bird adorns the left chest, while the “Louisville” wordmark spans across the upper back.������

• University Safety App: Card Armor

UofL students, staff and faculty can now download the new��. This will allow access to several important resources. When visiting your preferred app store, search for the safety app by typing “cardarmor” as one word. Card Armor replaces the previous version of Rave Guardian but does not replace the Rave Emergency Notification System. All traditional methods of communicating with the also are still available.

• Blackboard Ultra

UofL has transitioned to for all fall 2024 classes. Blackboard Ultra is more modern and mobile-friendly. Some features have changed. As you gear up for this semester, take a few moments to��.

• New immigration clinic at the law school

The will launch a new immigration law clinic this fall to provide critical legal services to the growing immigration population, teach law students necessary skills to successfully practice law, and develop a pipeline of immigration law attorneys.��The clinic will serve clients who are authorized to be present in the United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky but do not have the requisite documentation to prove it.��Law students, working under the supervision of a licensed, full-time attorney with extensive experience in immigration law, will take responsibility to represent clients and assist them in completing the required paperwork. ��

• New outpatient clinic and simulation operating room at the nursing school

The is opening a new simulation outpatient clinic and simulated operating room to provide the most up-to-date tools and experience for students in its nurse practitioner and nurse anesthetist programs. The space located on the first floor of the school has been repurposed from a former pediatric clinic. The new rooms will provide a modernized hands-on learning environment for students preparing to enter these specialties. This space will add to the already existing simulation and clinical training labs within the nursing school and Health Sciences Center campus, bolstering the educational opportunities for our students.

After three years of research and planning, colleges and some non-academic units have begun the process of moving their web presence to our new Drupal content management system (CMS) as part of the .��

A new interim homepage was unveiled last summer, giving the community a glimpse of the new digital experience. By June 2024, most colleges and units will debut on the new system. The end product will be a modern, dynamic, user-friendly web presence that upholds our commitment to current and future students, faculty and staff and the greater community.

The new web presence will consolidate over 400 websites into roughly 100 to prioritize the needs of UofL’s audiences. With the help of digital agency , UofL is implementing new website designs, content and structure based on months of student and competitor research, and extensive auditing of all sites. All of this will culminate in an audience-focused system that makes it easy for university departments to get their information in front of the right users.

Most importantly, the updates coming this June will help UofL better serve prospective and current students with the help of a centralized CMS. This is a major improvement over the siloed approach used over the past 10 years, said John Drees, vice president of communications & marketing.

“Students are the heart and soul of the institution, and we have a tremendous opportunity with this website project to connect with them in a more meaningful way, to communicate to them what makes UofL so special and to help them decide if we are the right fit for their future,” Drees said.

The backbone of this effort on the college and unit level are , designated by deans and VPs. Since September, content leads have been auditing their sites to weed out old information and identify the most relevant sections for their audiences. Technology leads identified the complexities their websites already used so that accommodations were made in Drupal.

Their work culminated in a library of reusable components, workflows, guidelines and other features that will make it easier to build pages that align with our brand standards and voice. Site URLs and structure were also based on extensive keyword research and user experience best practices to help each department perform better in search engine result pages (SERPS). The project team also reimagined admissions tasks to make it easier for students to discover and apply for programs, no matter which college site they’re navigating.

A small group of stakeholders tested these features in the first Drupal demos from Feb. 27-29. Over the course of several sessions, the Mighty Citizen, ITS and OCM teams guided them through a series of exercises, presentations and Q&A sessions to learn and improve the CMS. Stakeholders and their teams will continue to train on the new system throughout the spring.

Also attending were each unit’s success managers – marketing professionals in OCM who already work with each strategic area. Building on prior relationships, the success managers serve as the primary point of contact between the project team and content and technology leads, ensuring timely communication and project management.��

As we move into the content integration phase, content and technology leads will begin to appoint content creators, subject matter experts, asset managers and digital analysts to form the .��

In addition to clearly defining responsibilities, the new governance framework will formalize a system of improvements to the web through a Digital Experience Board, consisting of representatives from web responsibility committees and other institutional bodies, like and . Requests from users or administration will be considered based on alignment with university strategic goals, budgetary constraints and other board-identified requisite metrics for the collective benefit of all users.

“This project has been a long time in the making, but presented an opportunity to pull together the people on campus who have been working diligently for years to make things better,” said Amber Peter, director of web and digital strategy for OCM. “With these new tools, designs, processes and training, we hope to finally be able to not only better serve our audiences, but also support the staff and faculty who contribute to our web presence behind the scenes. That is something I hope will last well into the future.”

The new sites making their debut in summer of 2024 include Admissions, a new Student Services site, Financial Aid, Campus Safety and most schools and colleges. The sheer scale of this endeavor necessitated a phased approach, prioritizing student recruitment and services – the areas requiring the highest degree of customization and journey mapping. After the initial wave of student service and recruitment sites, the remaining departments at UofL will begin moving to Drupal following a similar, repeatable process.��

Websites that don’t serve an external marketing purpose will move to an intranet, where students, faculty and staff can perform internal tasks, like purchase parking tickets and register for classes. Staff and faculty are currently invited to weigh in on the intranet by completing a .��

For more information on the Web Improvement Project, visit the list.��

The most noticeable changes are a new design, more intuitive navigation and a mobile-first approach that positions the school for greater success in an increasingly competitive higher education space.��

“We’re a dynamic research university with many departments and moving parts,” said John Drees, vice president of communications & marketing. “With this interim homepage, we grappled with how we could elevate the website to match the experience we’ve provided our community for more than��200 years.”��

Three years of research and collaboration among the , the Office of Communications & Marketing (OCM), Information Technology Services (ITS) and informed all aspects of the interim homepage, including its design, content and information architecture.��

By analyzing past user behavior and meeting with campus stakeholders, UofL and Mighty Citizen coordinated research efforts to better understand who uses the website and how. This past year, Mighty Citizen conducted interviews, focus groups and competitor and landscape analyses. Their findings informed decision making throughout the development process.��

As a result, the new interim homepage prioritizes prospective audiences – especially students. It emphasizes major calls-to-action (i.e., apply and visit), improves pathways to key content and highlights the university’s academics, research and innovation and vibrant campus life.��

Additionally, new audience-focused pages help current students, parents and families, faculty and staff and industry and community partners easily find the resources that are most relevant to them.

The tools that current students, faculty and staff use most often are highlighted within the Top Tools & Accounts menu, offering internal audiences quick access to resources like email, Ulink, Blackboard and WorkdayHR.

The methodical approach yielded key insights that will bolster UofL’s recruitment efforts by improving the user experience for our target audiences. The interim homepage uses techniques to align with user behavior and preferences of current and prospective students who primarily access the homepage on smartphones.��

“The modern web user wants a clear path that meets their needs, and they want to get to their content in as few clicks as possible,” said Brad Anderson, ITS interim chief information officer. “And equally important, our research found that most of our site visitors, especially current and prospective students, were accessing our homepage from their phone.”��

With these insights, the interim homepage paves the way for a digital experience that’s inclusive of all audiences, particularly prospective students who often have multiple schools to consider. It also makes it easier for faculty, staff, alumni and the broader community to find the resources they need.��

“A website is the front door of an organization,” said Drees. “Visitors need to feel seen and welcomed. They want to know if UofL will help them achieve their goals. This interim homepage is an opportunity to do just that and support our broader strategic goal to be a great place to learn, discover, connect and work.”��

The interim homepage is only the first step toward a more user-friendly digital experience across all of UofL’s websites. Web enhancements will continue to roll out over the next several academic cycles.����

For more information about the Web Improvement Project, see this list of��

By Collin Overton, Office of Communications & Marketing��

The Web Improvement Project is focused on enhancing the daily lives of students, faculty and staff by modernizing and improving all university web-based experiences, as well as the processes behind developing and maintaining them. This digital overhaul will allow the university to attract great new students while fostering a stronger relationship with the community.

Due to the complexity and breadth of the project, it has been divided into three main phases with overlapping timelines. This phased approach will allow for the quick transformation of the highest traffic sites and ensure that all websites at UofL will be revamped for their appropriate audiences.

The project is currently in Phase 1, which focuses on how the university interacts with audiences externally, measurably closing the gap between expectation and experience on our web properties. By identifying the needs and building necessary pathways for our external audiences, prospective students, parents and community members will be more prepared to take meaningful action. The second phase will address the needs of current students to be informed and engaged, to further support their paths to academic success. Improving the digital workflow, creating processes and promoting collaboration between departments will be the focus of the final phase, impacting the platforms university employees use on a daily basis.

Overseeing this project is the Executive Committee, which is comprised of members from the President’s Office, Information Technology Services, Enrollment Management, Compliance and the Office of Communications and Marketing. The Executive Committee provides vision, direction and scope for the initiative while ensuring that improvements align with the university’s mission and values.

The Executive Committee is led by Michael Wade Smith, chief of staff and vice president for external affairs.

“The web is the first stop on many, maybe most, journeys with UofL. The outcome of this project will be a university website that increases the value of our UofL brand, quickly drives visitors to the information they seek, and makes it easy for those wanting to more deeply engage with UofL – by applying, donating, partnering and more – to do so,” Smith stated.

Recommendations to the Executive Committee on the topics of tools, support, processes, governance and change management across all three phases are generated by the Steering Committee. This committee has provided an avenue for open and honest conversations with the university community about our digital environment and facilitated necessary workgroups throughout the multi-year project. These groups have created the opportunity for more in-depth discussion and collaboration around various digital topics, helping us leverage the expertise spread across the university in a way that benefits all of our organization.

Co-leading the Steering Committee and the progress of the project overall are Amber Peter of the Office of Communications and Marketing and Brad Andersen of Information Technology Services.

“We’ve been really intentional, ensuring this project not just be about the replacement of an enterprise technology system, but a change in the way we work in this space. Even more important to our success than the system that is chosen, is the environment around that system. Providing everyone with the resources, training and support they need to accomplish their goals in this digital environment is paramount to the success of this project,” Andersen stated.

In addition to addressing the system and the resources available, woven throughout this project has been continual campus involvement. According to Peter, “From the beginning, we set out to get as many varied perspectives on this topic as possible, and that has not only helped keep our recommendations balanced, but has also provided an invaluable reminder of the cascading impact decisions such as these carry.”

To-date, surveys, committees and workgroups have been the most tangible ways campus has been able to engage with the project. Employees have also been encouraged to get involved by contacting members of the Steering Committee to share concerns or questions or through requesting involvement in . There will even be an opportunity in the coming months for campus community members to provide feedback regarding final CMS selection. Faculty and staff members can stay informed about the project through multiple channels, including UofL Today, UofL News, the as well as communications from leadership as significant milestones are achieved.