Higher Education Web Estates
Here’s what you might find if you lift back the covers on your higher education institution’s collection of websites. Note: actual results may vary by institutional size, age or complexity.
Higher education institution (HEI) web presences have typically developed autonomously, reflecting the federal nature of most universities and colleges. While no special harm is intended from letting content and technology evolve in this way, it has a downside.
HEI sub-units bring uneven resources and expertise to website and social media implementations. And, those imbalances show up later as “chronic care” issues.
Web estate audits (health checks) discover content neglect, legacy technologies, potential security exposures from dated software and operating system versions, missing data back-ups and confusion over responsible for individual sites.
The result is exposure to a mix of security, privacy, legal and financial risks. The benefits of resolving these vulnerabilities are secure, trusted and enhanced end-user experiences. And, there is even the opportunity to save money along the way.
A series of deeper dives into web estate complexities to follow ...
