Portal governance policy

The UOC portal (or its public website) is the University's public face. This is why it is key for it to engage its intended audiences and meet their needs.

The main aim of this page is to explain what exactly we mean by 'UOC portal', what its strategic objectives are, and who its main audiences are. The page also aims to share the portal's governance model, which is based on three pillars: monitoring committees, roles and responsibilities, and the processes and criteria for publishing web content.

1. General principles: what is it, and what is its purpose?

According to its mission, the UOC's portal is its main platform for communicating and creating loyalty with all external audiences worldwide. It also allows us to disseminate our academic knowledge. It provides relevant content and an excellent user experience representing the UOC's pioneering, accessible and transformative vision.

The UOC's external portal is composed of all the content provided by it under the uoc.edu domain (websites, sub-portals, blogs and general-interest journals).

The portal is part of a digital ecosystem: as well as the content manager, there are many other tools and platforms that help give all our audiences a great digital experience: analytics tools, customer relationship management (CRM), profiling and enrolment, intranet, social media and so on.

The portal's content must meet our users' needs and be presented in a way that is easy to understand and helps them achieve their objectives..


2. Strategic objectives


  • Positioning: the portal is the main platform for showcasing the UOC and must therefore provide an excellent user experience.
  • Visibility, scope, dissemination: the portal's SEO and SEM strategies give the UOC visibility and enable it to reach the whole world. The knowledge generated by the UOC is disseminated in blogs and online journals.
  • Commercial action: the Estudia a la UOC section sets out the range of learning programmes on offer and is a key channel for attracting and converting leads.
  • Attracting talent: the portal must provide contents and experiences that are in line with our mission, vision and way of working, all of which helps attract talent.
  • Loyalty and service: the portal must encourage repeat visits from audiences such as alumni and partner companies (creation of loyalty).
  • Legal compliance: quality indicators, transparency portal, e-services portal, institutional reports, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws and regulations, cookies, accessibility, etc.

1. The UOC Portal Strategic Monitoring Committee

The UOC Portal Strategic Monitoring Committee is the body to which the Executive Board delegates all strategic decisions relating to the portal. It has the following functions:
 

  • To convey the Executive Board-approved strategic actions and objectives that affect the portal.
  • To ensure that the portal helps to achieve the UOC's overall mission and strategic plan, and to meet all its target audiences' needs and expectations;
  • To approve the proposal for the allocation and prioritization of the budget and other resources.
  • To approve the operational plan for the portal's content and continual improvement.
  • To assess the portal's results and KPIs.
  • To identify and monitor significant risks.
  • To oversee and ensure the effective implementation of the portal's corporate governancel.

 

2. The UOC Portal Operating Monitoring Commitee

The UOC Portal Operating Monitoring Committee is the body to which the UOC Portal Strategic Monitoring Committee delegates the tasks of outlining, implementing and monitoring the portal's content plan and actions for improvement:

 

  • Defining the plan for the portal's contents and continual improvement.
  • Executing and monitoring the actions agreed in the portal plan.
  • Defining and monitoring KPIs.
  • Monitoring user feedback and behaviour (this applies to both current and potential users).
  • Informing the UOC Portal Strategic Monitoring Committee of significant risks and providing it with proposals for new policies and protocols.
  • Ensuring that the portal complies with the applicable laws and regulations (cookies, accessibility, etc.).
  • Ensuring that all portal content upholds the UOC's brand and values.
  • Coordinating portal-related decisions and communications within the UOC's internal community..

 

3. Roles

There are three types of role (information owner, content owner and content editor) that are key to the portal's collaborative governance. The aim is to ensure that the person responsible for the content in each part of the portal is clearly identified. This is key to ensuring that content published is relevant, high-quality and up to date.

These roles must continue to exist in the future as they will facilitate the ongoing improvement and renewal of content.
 

Information owner
  • The person in this role is the expert in charge of specifying the main messages and content for a specific part of the portal from a strategic point of view.
  • This person has ultimate responsibility for the information and for ensuring it is kept up to date.
  • They are responsible for the 'what' rather than the 'how'.
  • Key player in the definition of the project briefing.

 

Content owner
  • The person in this role is in charge of updating the content of a specific part of the portal and ensuring its continued quality over time.
  • They must make occasional changes to the portal in accordance with the templates that apply at any given time.
  • They often act as an intermediary between the information owner and the content editor.

 

Content editor
  • The person in this role is an expert in the optimal transfer of content to the web format.
  • They define the templates for the various parts of the portal.
  • They are very knowledgeable about CMS and follow best practices as regards UX and SEO.
  • They do their work with the support of specialists (SEO, UX, analytics), who form part of the web team.
  • They take responsibility for the portal's strategic areas following agreement with the UOC Portal Operating Monitoring Committee.

1. Web analysis model

This model provides for SEO and web analysis - in relation to both the UOC and other industry players - to provide a starting point for any portal improvement initiatives. This analysis covers the following aspects:

Analysis of the competition or other benchmarks

  • Benchmarking
  • Keyword research in relation to competitors or other benchmarks

Internal analysis

  • Web analytics
  • SEO
  • User behaviour

2. Web project process

This begins as soon as the need arises and continues until the project is implemented. It is very important to support the web team and the information owner as a key player in the definition of the need (briefing) and the validation of the web proposal throughout the process. This involves four main stages:


  1. Contacting the web team
  2. Classification of the need by the web team
  3. Planning of the need by the web team
  4. Development of the improvement by the teams involved

3. Website publication criteria

These principles answer the question "What does a webpage or website need to have in order to be published?" They cover the following aspects::


  1. Objectives: all websites need an intent that connects them with their audience.
  2. Audiences: you must know your audience and their needs in order to connect them to your value proposition.
  3. Context: you must analyse web benchmarks, KPIs and user behaviour to establish whether you have an optimal web solution.
  4. User-centred: you must always remember that users' needs are key to increasing their satisfaction with the website.
  5. Durability: content must last over time. Current affairs will be provided by the news, agenda items and social media.
  6. Accessibility: accessibility benefits the website itself by making it lighter and more adaptable to different browsers and devices.
  7. SEO: in order to be visible on Google, you need inbound links and must take account of queries and search intent in a way that is consistent with the University's SEO positioning strategy.
  8. Mobile first: content designed based on how it will be viewed on a mobile device result in a better user experience.
  9. Avoid scattering: it is better to have few URLs that are strategic and well-designed than excessively scattering messages. Scattering results in a high risk of cannibalization in Google rankings.
  10. Sustainable maintenance: every published part of the website must be governable, maintainable and measurable.