CMS Connect 2024 - Digital governance and standards can be more fun than you think

Well-defined digital standards can impact more than just the way websites are built. At McGill University they are a cornerstone of our digital governance framework and a key reference guiding departmental web strategies and cross-departmental collaborations. They’re also the foundation of a mindset from which members of our community - leaders, web managers and site visitors - share a common understanding of what makes an exemplary website, and by extension an exemplary web ecosystem.

This presentation will discuss our experiences building a digital standards community of practice at McGill and examine our takeaways and lessons learned. We’ll look at:

Ways we engage with departments and stakeholders across our university to continually evaluate and revise our digital standards.

How we ensure our tools evolve in alignment with our standards - and how facilitating alignment with our standards encourages the adoption of and loyalty to our tools.

How current topics of interest in our community - generative AI; sustainability; diversity, equity and inclusion - are impacting (and not impacting) our digital standards.

1. Land acknowledgement This event is taking place on land which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. I acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous peoples whose presence marks this territory on which peoples of the world now gather.

2. Digital governance and standards can be more fun than you think CMS Connect 24

3. Hi, I’m Joyce Joyce Peralta Manager, Digital Communications at McGill University user experience | web governance | web strategy linkedin.com/in/joyceperalta @theotherlondon

4. McGill’s web landscape circa 2018 1000 Drupal sites + 500 non-templated sites 1500 site managers 8-10 million page views per month

5. Drupal 6 -7 migration Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash

6. Web Evolution Program Photo by Misael Moreno on Unsplash

7. Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash How can we build better websites? How can we build a better web ecosystem? Photo by Anna Samoylova on Unsplash

8. Better digital Standards 101 Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash

9. Ontario Digital Service Standard

10. Better digital standards = Improved standards compliance = Better websites

11. McGill’s digital standards

12. Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash Governance framework Education and training Toolkits and other self-serve resources Consultation support for large projects Ongoing communications

13. Endless possibilities Photo by Guille Álvarez on Unsplash

14. Building our digital standards community of practice

15. Communities of practice Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly . (Lave & Wenger, 1991)

16. Communities of practice How do we inspire people to share a concern or passion for our digital standards? How to we encourage people to continually learn about our digital standards? How do we make it possible for people to interact as they learn?

17. McGill’s digital standards

18. Our digital standards Standards we strive to achieve when creating sites. Focus and alignment for our support services. An institutional educational resource. Foundation of our web governance framework.

19. Members of McGill’s Digital Standards Community of Practice Engaging with our community of practice: Raise awareness of our standards Evolve our tools Improve processes

20. Raising awareness of our standards

21. Make sites accessible and inclusive Illustration by RIcardo Levins Morales – Art for the People .

22. Education, training and other resources

23. Communicate priorities

24. Community self-governance

25. Make sites accessibility and inclusive, roles and responsibilities Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed Manager, Digital Communications, Digital Communications team Accessibility Advisor, McGill Equity team Director, Digital Communications, Communications and External Relations Director, IT Communications, IT Services Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) Equity Team, Accessibility Advisor (add other roles) Office for Student Accessibility and Achievement Student Usability Panel Web Advisory Committee Members of our site manager and editor community Communications and External Relations IT Services Anyone involved in producing digital content for our community. Others whose work will be impacted by our digital standards, including our procurement, external providers,

26. Evolving our tools

27. Drupal 6 -7 migration Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash

28. Drupal 10 migration Cross-departmental collaboration Design development Change management .Training Ongoing dialogue with our community Change agents Community events Through our existing support framework

29. Evolving our processes

30. Be user focused Mapping our audience journeys

31. Journey mapping process Identify goals and areas of interest. Who? What journey? Establish a cross-departmental, cross disciplinary team Collect existing data. Conduct additional research. Analyze data and produce a visualization that illustrates the user journey.

32. Pursuing a common purpose

33. Benefits of journey mapping Develop empathy to maintain user focus Identify opportunities for improvement. Create strategic alignment through a shared frame of reference.

34. What we’ve learned Photo by Sunguk Kim on Unsplash

35. Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash Better digital standards Building tools to support standards Governance framework Education and training Toolkits and other self-serve resources Consultation support for large projects

36. Provide opportunities for shared learning and interaction Facilitate collaboration Establish discussion forums Celebrate successes

37. Questions?