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Extension Website Rebuild Plan 2022

Extension Leadership has worked closely with the Communications Web Team to come up with a preliminary design, solicit and implement feedback, and have final meetings to understand the process moving forward.

The final design concept was approved by leadership on July 13 with a charge to move forward in implementing our proposal across Extension.

We are confident that this rebuild will result in a website that meets the needs of our clients more efficiently and enhances the Extension mission of imparting research-based information to help South Carolinians prosper.

This video is part of the initial proposal and while there have been minor changes since these screen captures were recorded, much of the final website design is the same. This video will give you a good idea of what the home page, program team and county pages will look like as we move forward with implementing this redesign plan.

Ways to Help

Here are a few things Extension employees can do to contribute to a smooth website transition:

Events

Event flyer templates that the Comm Team provides on the branding site are not meant to be shared as digital files (email, social media, websites, etc). They do not meet digital accessibility compliance and are intended to be printed and then posted/shared physically. If you are not going to put a thumb tack in it or a stamp on it, please do not use those templates for event promotion.

Use (or begin using) the university calendar software (Localist) to create a digital file for each of your events. Be sure to tag each event with your county office location and other notable tags (ie: if your event is hosted at Sandhill REC, tag that location) so the event is fed onto the web pages. Moving forward, neither event flyers (images or PDF) nor text lists of events will be provided on a website. 

Employee profile page

Create or update your employee profile page. This content is used to feed all of the employee directories in Extension and CAFLS. Create/edit your profile.

  • Be sure to self-select the county(ies), program team, REC and/or CAFLS department you are affiliated with so that your contact information appears on pages with those employee filters. 
  • In the "Title" field, please input your common title (ie: "Lowcountry 4-H Agent" or "ServeSafe® Instructor") instead of your state employee title (ie: Extension Associate or Program Coordinator ).
  • Include your county affiliations (when relevant) after your title. No need to include "Area" in your title, it is redundant when you list multiple counties.  
    Example:  
         Agronomy Agent - Greenville, Anderson, Pickens Counties  
         ServSafe® Instructor - Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester 

News & Newsletters

News & Newsletters will no longer be viewable/downloadable PDFs from websites. If updates of this kind need to be shared on your website, consider using Clemson blogs for program team/program/county/district news/newsletters. ClemsonBlogs will feed onto web pages (similar to how news stories do now), so this is an excellent resource for sharing news/updates with programmatic or community audiences. Submit a Project Request to initiate this process. 

PDFs

PDFs in general need to be eliminated or substantially reduced from web pages. You can learn more about why that is and what alternate resources you have available from this post: The Problem With PDFs on the Comm team blog.

Cascade Users

While expecting that most of you are ecstatic about the idea that you don't won't need to log into Cascade ever again - we recognize that some of you are concerned about your upcoming loss of web editing access. We are happy to discuss this with you if you'd like but also it is our hope that you feel empowered by the above list, which keeps web editing of most website content in your hands. 

As time permits at the end of summer, please use your Cascade access to

  • continue to make updates as needed for critical, time-sensitive content, or feel free to use this time to get used to using the "Page Update Request" in the footer of your sites to let us know about needed changes;
  • start culling outdated, unused or unnecessary text, links, and files from your Cascade folder(s);
  • please let us know of any sites or pages that you know can be unpublished and deleted (a program that is no longer active, a person has left Clemson employment, a research project funding has ended, etc.) We will be glad to work with you to unpublish and delete these pages/sites.

Extension Web Rebuild

  • Opportunities
    • Serving our constituent groups more effectively
    • Further advancing our land-grant mission
    • Dynamically telling the story of Extension’s impact on the state through:
      • Highlighting programs of distinction
      • Promoting and reflecting diversity of Extension
  • Timeline

    University Relations has proposed a 2-year timeline in which to migrate all University websites. All Extension sites will need to be rebuilt by September 1, 2022.

    This process can be completed in stages, with Extension Leadership assisting the PSA/CAFLS web team in determining the appropriate top-level content and prioritizing which sites fall under each stage. Now that top-level decisions have been made, the PSA/CAFLS web team will work with individual site owners to rebuild their content.

    The approved plan is to have Phase I (detailed below) complete and published by Thanksgiving break. 

  • Recommendations Summary

    Prioritize the web rebuild* as follows:

    • Extension homepage and top-level pages (program teams, county offices)
      • The rest of Extension based on Extension Leadership and Google Analytics
    • Allow the PSA/CAFLS web team to build draft sites and present for approval
    • Recognize the PSA/CAFLS web team’s expertise to restructure based on usability, accessibility and best practices
    • Work with units to remove outdated information
      • Off-brand documents
      • PDF archives
    • Use Clemson blogs for program team/program/county/district news/newsletters
    • Use page update request form for web edits
    • Use the University Calendar (Localist) for all Extension events
    • Have all Extension employees update their faculty/staff profiles to ensure they are accurate

    * Websites can be rebuilt concurrently depending on workload, complexity and client participation

    The following units are not included in this report because they are built in WordPress. Our team has access to edit and maintain these websites, but site statistics are not in our report.

    • Home & Garden Information Center
    • Land-Grant Press
  • Current Extension Website

    The current Extension website consists of 3,720 web pages and 3,665 files (images and documents). There are currently 42 Cascade users who have access to edit these sites, yet 41% of Extension pages have not been edited in the last year. Some content has not been edited since the last migration in 2017. 

    Extension Site Issues

    • Duplicate content
    • Usability concerns
      • PDFs
      • Link usage
      • Website structure
    • Broken links: 
      • 132 pages with broken links
      • 78 broken links
      • 279 PDFs with broken links
      • 518 broken links in PDFs
    • Images that are not properly optimized
    • Documents that do not meet accessibility requirements
    • Documents that are off-brand
    • Sites that have been abandoned 
    • Too many Cascade users
  • Extension Site Goals

    Based on feedback from the Extension Leadership Team and the Extension Web Committee, the new Extension website should:

    • Make it easier for users to get the help they need:
      • Find a contact person
      • Locate their county office
      • Find relevant resources
      • Find events and programs
    • Feature a more intuitive navigation system
    • Provide a more consistent user experience
    • Improve search engine rankings:
      • Focus on text copy and proper structure
      • Reduce the overall number of pages
      • Remove duplicate content
      • Remove outdated content
      • Improve quality control
    • Provide alternate ways to update the website
      • Page update request form
      • Localist for calendar events
      • Marketplace for store needs
      • Clemson blogs for newsletters
  • Content outline for Extension Phase I rebuild: (see screenshot below)
    • Extension Homepage Content
        1. Find a person
        2. Find a local county office
        3. Ask an Expert
        4. Resources shortcuts
        5. 4-H Spotlight
        6. Events
        7. Newsfeed
    • Extension Top-Level Navigation
    • Topics
          1. Agribusiness
          2. Animals & Forages
          3. Crop Production
          4. Food
          5. Gardening & Landscape
          6. Health
          7. Natural Resources
          8. Youth
    • County Offices
    • Events
          1. Regions
          2. Garrison Arena and Expo Center
          3. SC Botanical Garden
    • Publications
          1. HGIC
          2. LGP
          3. Grower Guides
          4. Handbooks
          5. For Sale Publications
          6. Clemson Extension Publishing
    • About
          1. Message from the Director (Optional)
          2. Mission and Vision
          3. Organizational Information (Directory)
          4. Program Teams
          5. Strategic Plan
          6. Advancement Council
          7. Accomplishments
          8. For Employees
    • Connect
        1. Social Media directory
        2. HGIC, LGP subscriptions
        3. Giving

    screen shot extension navigation

  • Extension Leadership Approval
    The PSA/CAFLS Web Team has the full support from Extension Administration regarding the new web structure and management approach
    • Homepage approval
    • Top-level navigation approval
    • County site approval
    • Cascade access restricted to the PSA/CAFLS web team
    • Files must meet accessibility guidelines
    • A vast reduction in the number of PDFs available online

    Extension Administration will continue to:

    • Help prioritize the order in which sites are rebuilt
    • Help promote the importance of web accessibility and ADA compliance
    • Meet regularly with the PSA/CAFLS Web Team for a monthly status update