Web content strategy in higher education institutions

Abstract

College and university websites play a vital role in promoting an institution’s identity and achievements, facilitate the recruitment of prospective students and provide information for current students through content. They are a major source of information and the largest communication tool between the university and internal or external audiences. Therefore, one of the university’s main missions is to be strategic with its valuable and useful website content and to treat it as a critical asset. The purpose of this research was to investigate the current state of the web content of the website of Abdulaziz University (KAU) and propose a web content strategy to be applied. The study includes three phases: (1) a survey of the website coordinators of KAU, which showed that 97% of them were not dedicated solely to website issues, 35% have qualifications in fields unrelated to website design, usability testing is considered the best way of assessing an audience’s needs and usage behaviour by 65%, none of the respondents have a web content strategy nor were working on one; (2) an evaluation of internal and external environments concerning KAU’s website content using SWOT analysis; and (3) the presentation of a proposed strategy using the Delphi approach. This strategy will guide the planning, creation and governance of web content in line with KAU’s strategic aims, and will support the university in achieving its vision with respect to education, research, innovation and communication.