How Your Site Fits In

The college web presence is comprised of individual pages, websites, Web-based applications and other digital content provided via the Web, which must form a coherent and recognizable whole that supports the college’s mission.

Deciding how your website will fit into the college Web presence is formally called "integration planning."

Integration Planning

Whenever a college webpage or other content is added, revised, removed or relocated, an integration plan helps everyone involved think about how that content fits in with the site as a whole. Integration planning should be done for both sites developed in-house and for web designs, content and services provided by vendors.

Best practice is to begin thinking about the integration plan at the start of every new college and college-affiliated web project, as well as major revisions of existing content.

Use the website planning worksheet to record the considerations for your new website or revision.

Typical Integration Considerations

The integration plan can be simple or complex, depending on the content in question. Typical considerations include but are not limited to:

• The users of the content and the reasons they need the content.
• Use of standard branding, navigation and other look-and-feel elements
• Location and phrasing of links both to and from your website (i.e. how users reach your site from the rest of the site, and how they get from your site to the rest of the site)
• Possible impact on other parts of the website
• If your site is conceptually part of another site (often applies to web-based forms and applications).
• Inclusion/exclusion from search (both external and internal)
• Level of user access (i.e., open to the public or password-protected)
• Use of content from other sources, such as, college:
  • calendar,
  • policies,
  • directory or course data,
  • print publications or
  • content from another site).