Web Guidelines: Requesting a Site | Communications & Marketing

Web Guidelines

Requesting a new site

What is a new site?

A new site contains the following mandatory elements, all of which are unique to each individual site:

  • a site homepage featuring four homepage highlight boxes;
  • a left hand side menu;
  • a text header appearing above the content and menu sections of the header;
  • an About page or section linked from the left hand side menu;
  • a People page;
  • a Contact page;
  • an optional News & Events section. This will only be set up if the site owner can make a commitment to update it regularly with ongoing news and events.

What is the process for requesting a new site?

  • Requests for new sites/sections within the dcu.ie website should go to Communications & Marketing at comms.marketing@dcu.ie.
  • You should place your request with Communications & Marketing a minimum of 2 months ahead of when you would like the site to go live.
  • If the request is approved, the work involved with building the basic site will then be scheduled with Information Systems & Services (ISS). You may be required to attend additional training or provide more content before this work will be scheduled.
  • Once the basic site has been built out, staff from Communications & Marketing will be in touch with you to finalise site content and schedule a go-live date.

What are some of the criteria considered when reviewing a request?

Setting up a new site requires a commitment of resources on behalf of Information Systems & Services, Communications & Marketing and the DCU staff requesting the site / agreeing to maintain it, so each request is reviewed carefully.

Some criteria considered:

  • Is there a team in place with sufficient resources and training to maintain the site?
  • Is there enough unique content to sustain a standalone site?
  • Would this content be more relevant within an existing Faculty, School or Department website?
  • Is there an agreed plan for how this content will be updated and maintained?
  • Is the content relevant to the university as a whole, or would it be better positioned as part of an academic/staff member's personal website?

In many cases, new proposed content could fit quite well within an existing site and other tools such as homepage highlight boxes or news articles can be used to draw attention to it. Communications & Marketing and ISS staff will be able to advise you on this.