Unit Introduction

I have decided that for my final independent online project, I will treat the unit as a business case study.

I intend to create a site that will act as a showcase for students' work. However, it will be a showcase of FUCCA students, and specifically FUCCA Journalism students.

The aim of the site will be to act as a POS (Point of Sale) for the university, and specifically, for the Journalism BA degree course.

The target audience will be A-Level students who are researching courses and universities to decide which to apply to, and hopefully attend and take on a degree course with.

The overall idea behind this is to gain business experience for myself, and that is why I have chosen this particular aim, audience, and content. As a result of doing so, I can approach the course leader in a business capacity, rather than as an academic tutor. By switching this role, I can turn tutorial sessions into business meetings, whereby I can display my work thus far, gain input, and then re-design/re-structure the site so as to better reflect my client's wishes.

What this means for me professionally, is that the work will have to reflect the client's desires as accurately as possible. A portion of the design and content management will be taken away from me, as the client will have the final say in how they want the site to look, and what content they want displayed; at the end of the day, the overall aim of the site is to act as a POS for the university after all.

In terms of design, I do not believe the site need necessarily be that complex. The key aspects will be for it to be easily navigable, and clear/concise so as not to draw too much attention away from the main content (students' work showcased).

I will have to assess the existing FUCCA site, and mirror my site on their design. The reason for this is that the site is designed to be a selling point for FUCCA and in that regard should be in many ways an extension of it. It would look odd if the site were too distanced from the FUCCA site, as they would look unrelated.

In terms of content, I will need to liase closely with the course tutors so as to gather content that they feel they would like to display; works that they are proud of and feel would effectively sell the course to a prospective student. In this way, I can display 'Print', 'Radio', and 'Television' pieces, whilst the site itself would be showing 'Online'.

In addition, student testimonials (past and present) may be further content that could be included. It would be better to include student testimonials than a 'university pitch', as student testimonials will be viewed by prospective students as more trustworthy, accurate, and reliable reflections on the course.

Any text featured on the site will have to be fairly light. It needs to be always kept in mind that the audience (excluding the occasional mature student) will be 17-19 year olds. If the text is too heavy, it may be a deterrant.

In terms of marketing the site, I do not feel that this necessarily an option. The goal of the site is to give prospective students an idea of what students on the FUCCA Journalism course can achieve. The site itself could be linked to by the FUCCA site if they so chose, and potentially by Steve Miller's personal blog (a blog designed to be used as a Journalism student resource). The site would be affiliating itself with and linking to these two sites regardless of whether they link back or not.

The structure of the site will be kept simple, with four main sections so as to reflect the four specialties that the course focuses on. Each section will showcase a particular student's work in that specialty (potentially more than one student's work could be displayed). Further to this, there may be a 'Introductory' or 'Home' page, and an 'About Us' page. I am unsure whether or not to include an archive page, as the work displayed could be updated over time (a suitable time frame could be at the end of every semester when new work has been produced), and old work kept. This is however, an issue that would have to be discussed with the client.

Again, the site needs to be simple so as to get the sales pitch across as effectively as possible. The true 'sale' so to speak will be the work showcased, with the site design itself as a further display.

I think that for a site like this, RSS feeds are potentially redundant as they are not the focus of, or related to the focus of, the site itself. The same could be said of comment options and forums. I do not believe these are common features on University showcase sites, and as such will most likely be left out. That said, this is another feature that will need to be discussed with the client.

Whether or not the site goes live is ultimately up to the client. It could be hosted by BlackApple as was suggested for the previous semester's work, or it could be given to the university and be hosted on the same server as the official FUCCA site.

The first step is of course to design a 'pitch' for the client, based on the points covered here and see if their needs are matched therein. If not, the design of the site, including content and features, can be adjusted before site construction begins.