Best of CASE District VIII Award
 

Institution: The University of British Columbia

Title of entry: The launch of the UBC Today website

About this entry: In August 2020, the UBC Internal Communications team launched ‘UBC Today’ – the university’s first-ever, dedicated website for faculty and staff. This site is a dynamic hub, aggregating latest updates, institutional announcements, President’s blog, media releases and curated faculty and staff-focused stories from across the organization (disciplines and geographies). It contains useful dates, a comprehensive resource library and event listings. It also marks a breakthrough for internal communications at UBC.

Prior to this launch, faculty and staff information lived on a static sub-page within UBC’s central website (UBC.ca). In a 2018 survey, one in five faculty and staff respondents identified the need for a more robust university-wide faculty and staff portal. Recognizing the challenges of developing an intranet, the Internal Communications team pursued a stand-alone website, with an accompanying weekly digest, emailed to 17,000 faculty and staff on both campuses (Vancouver and Okanagan) and distributed learning sites. As part of the development/research process, the team engaged more than 800 faculty and staff through online surveys, user analyses and one-to-one interviews.

Based on faculty and staff feedback, and in keeping with changing times and versatile needs of the university community, the 'UBC Today' website is easier to navigate, easier to access, tailored to the various needs of UBC’s internal audiences, and more adaptable than ever before. With its mobile friendly interface, it encourages broad reach from any location, and it has become a key institutional channel for the university, creating opportunities for more engagement and user-generated content from faculty and staff.