In recent weeks, colleges and universities have made tough decisions like asking students to move out of the dorms and transitioning classes to online instruction. It's obvious that clear communication and frequently-updated information is crucial. Students, staff, faculty, and parents need to be reassured that university leadership is on top of the situation.
Here are some of the sites and pages that our higher ed customers have created and are continuing to update.
https://www.emory.edu/coronavirus/
The site is very rich in resources, and it also adds a human touch with a video in coming together as a community.
The Emory site lists all of the messages that have been going out and identifies the audience for each one. You can filter by audience and by school.
Website visitors also have the opportunity to submit questions, which is an excellent way for the communications team to identify potential content gaps.
https://www.richmond.edu/coronavirus/index.html
The site makes it very easy for users to find what they’re looking for, as it prioritizes the links to resources based on different segments of their audience.
https://www.tamu.edu/coronavirus/
Most of the information can be found on one page. The links on the right navigation simply take you to different anchors on the page. TAMU is also asking students and staff to log into their portal in order to report their travel.
The FAQ sections is divided into various topics, such as General Information, TAMU Response, Travel Guidance, and Faculty & Staff.
And finally, there’s a PSA on what the user can do to help.
https://news.chapman.edu/coronavirus/
Chapman dedicates a section in their newsroom to the Coronavirus. You’ll see that the most important announcements are prominent on the landing page. On the right side, users can click on their persona and identify themselves as Prospective Students, Students, Faculty, etc., which takes them to dedicated pages with information most relevant to them.
Here’s what prospective students see:
Faculty and Staff are linked to much different resources:
https://www.brandeis.edu/health/coronavirus/index.html?feature
https://www.hartford.edu/student-life/health-wellness/health-services/health-alerts.aspx
https://www.northwestern.edu/coronavirus-covid-19-updates/
https://www.wm.edu/about/administration/emergency/current_issues/coronavirus/
https://news.nova.edu/uncategorized/nsu-coronavirus-covid-19-updates/
https://www.ucsc.edu/coronavirus/index.html
These are just a few examples of how our higher education customers keep their stakeholders informed and reassured. While each example is structured differently, it is clear that each communications team knows their audience and has been thoughtful about how to present which type of information to them.
Last Updated: Mar 17, 2020 11:00 AM
