Your grant may hang on your homepage

Over 80 web sites are already using the Drupal content management framework. Recent additions include the Faculty of Humanities, the departments of Architecture, Machine Engineering, Mathematical Sciences and Health Sciences as well as Women Studies and Gender Studies.

text Hanna-Mari Vanhasalmi

A top researcher may be fooled to thinking that your research project is old hat or a reviewer of your grant proposal may look askance at your application, if all they can find on the net are the department’s old web pages. Good web pages are a matter of practical utility as much as a matter of image.

When reviewers or customers seek information concerning the University of Oulu, the first thing they do is visit the web pages of the university or the research group. Good web pages offer information both in Finnish and English, which is also the Rector’s recommendation.

Promising researchers may turn their backs on the university, or grants may be missed out on, courtesy of bad web pages, reminds Sinikka Eskelinen, head of Research and Innovation Services.

“If we are to be endorsed as experts, we must look proficient in the internet world”, maintains Eskelinen.

She says that the importance of web presence was highlighted by last year’s tenure track search, which was open to post-doc applicants across the globe. As could be expected, the greatest number of applications was received by groups with good quality, up-to-date web pages.

Eskelinen puts it bluntly: “An applicant viewing a drab web page from 1998 thinks that’s one place I will not be going.”

She adds that, in the Anglo-American scientific culture, researchers’ home pages typically include biographical information as well as a mention of all awards and grants received. Competition is tough, and researchers must prove their worth online.

This type of self-marketing is alien to Finnish culture, although messy home pages or lacking information content may, at worst, stand in the way of getting a grant.

“Evaluators will first check out the researcher’s or unit’s web site. And the net is a ruthless environment. No matter how well the application has been prepared, if the required information cannot be found in ten seconds on the net, the evaluators are unlikely to keep browsing further”, Eskelinen contends.

Good web pages are easy to navigate

Presently, the task of revising the websites of the university’s organizational units is in good progress. Thus, by the end of March, about 80 websites had already been published using the Drupal content management framework. Of all teaching units, only 20 sites still await publishing, explains communications designer Susanna Saarinen, Drupal administrator at the University of Oulu.

A survey conducted in October on the user friendliness of the university web site disclosed that the parallel use of two different layouts, the old and the new one, causes a degree of confusion among site visitors. Harmonizing the websites of the different units is particularly important for external visitors accessing the sites.

This year’s joint application period to Finnish universities started recently, and applicants will greatly benefit from Drupal’s uniform menu structures and well-presented and up-to-date content.

“It is vital for teaching units to build their Drupal pages as soon as possible”, Saarinen maintains.

For assistance, units with incomplete web pages may turn to Communications. Requests for support may be emailed to drupaltuki(@)oulu.fi