About the project

Background

The intranet as it is today certainly has relevant content, but it doesn’t attract users because the information is incomplete, not up-to-date and, in parts, unreliable. The layout does not fit in with WWU’s corporate design and the individual pages still have to be maintained by hand. Moreover, the information provided is not sufficiently geared to departments’ requirements.

In order to improve the current situation the Rector’s Office – on the initiative of the Chancellor of the University – has tasked the web content management and the IT organisation within the administration with providing an alternative to the current intranet.

Aims

The aims of the Intranet Relaunch Project is not only to relaunch the current intranet but also to see how feasible it is to turn it into an integrated employee portal. Both are designed to help improve communications between WWU’s institutions, as well to make employees’ work easier by the provision of better information and by means of electronic support for application forms and for administrative tasks. And, last but not least, a further aim is to improve the communications culture within the University and thus increase identification with WWU.

Short-term: Intranet Relaunch
The idea of the new intranet is to be equally attractive to university departments, the administration and central service departments. To achieve this, not only will the current technology be modernised, but the intranet’s content will also be upgraded.

Medium-term: Employee Portal
If the planned requirements analysis suggests it should be done, an integrated employee portal could be set up to complement the new intranet. This would serve as a platform for digital administrative processes (e.g. handling claims for travel expenses electronically, or document management).

Team

Philipp Spreckels (Web Content Manager, Head)
Peter Wichmann (Chief Web Content Manager, [accountability])
Thomas Mahlmann (IT organisation within the administration, [accountability])
Ann-Kathrin Bilda (Personal Assistant to the Chancellor)

phiChrista Fruhner-Hamarchers (Office, German Studies Institute)
Maria Homeyer (Staff Mobility, International Office)
Dr. Ulrich Kathöfer (IVV2, Economics Department)
Nicola Meyer (Personnel and Organisational Development)
Holger Przibytzin (University Library)
Dominik Rudolph (Centre of Information Processing)
Anna Wassum (Philological Department)
N.N. (Representative of the Staff Council)

Academic Partners
Prof. Guido Hertel (Organizational and Business Psychology)
Jens Mazei, Psychologist (Organizational and Business Psychology)

How will we proceed?

Analyses

The project is currently in the analyzing phase. A requirements analysis in cooperation with the organizational psychologists is currently held in order to tailor the future content of the intranet to employees’ requirements. Parallel to this, an appraisal of the current intranet will show us which content and processes can be reworked and transferred to the new intranet.

Relaunch

On the basis of the requirements analysis and the appraisal mentioned above, a plan will be drawn up and agreed with the Rector’s Office for the intranet relaunch. Working together with the relevant institutions, the web content management will start work on the structure of the new intranet. The plan is for the new intranet to go live, with basic content, at the end of March 2013.

Development

Parallel to running and supporting the new intranet, the remainder of the content will be developed until December 2013, thus replacing the old intranet step by step.

FAQs

1. Who is the new intranet intended for?

For all employees of WWU, whether from the administration, the university departments or the central services. The University Clinic already has its own intranet.

2. I’d like to make a suggestion. / I have a question. Who should I contact?

You can contact project leader Philipp Spreckels by phone on 83-22192 or by email at philipp.spreckels@uni-muenster.de.

3. Will the intranet change in appearance?

Yes. The graphic design of the new intranet will be aligned to the corporate design used for WWU websites.

4. Why will there only be basic content to begin with?

We opted for this variation so that WWU employees can start working as quickly as possible with the newly edited pages. A complete relaunch would have meant that users would have had to continue using the old intranet for very much longer.

5. Will the old intranet pages be reworked by the time of the relaunch?

There will not be any reworking of the old intranet pages as this would delay the relaunch for too long.

6. I answered a survey just recently as part of the evaluation of the administration. Why yet another survey now?

We don’t want to reinvent the wheel and will certainly be including in our planning the experiences and results gained from the evaluation of the administration. Nevertheless, the requirements analysis is still important if we want to tailor the new intranet as precisely as possible to employees’ requirements.

7. Who will be maintaining the information pages in future?

In future, all assistance and specific enquiries for support will – as is already the case for WWU’s central web content – come together in the web content management’s office. The long-term maintenance of the intranet pages themselves will be the responsibility of the individual departments and will be carried out by means of the tried and tested “Imperia” content management system.