Website Oversight & Edits

UTMB websites are a critical operational asset for all areas at our institution. Ultimately, as with other entity-specific resources and tools, the primary responsibility for the oversight, management and content on these sites rests with UTMB’s respective departments and program, across all mission areas. 

The university provides a centralized hosting environment, a web content management/publishing system (Sitefinity), training and associated tools and resources at no cost to university areas.

Areas are required to identify a site owner/principal contact, and to identify at least one individual tasked with basic maintenance functions for the area’s website(s). This person is called a “content editor.”

All websites should be reviewed at least quarterly to ensure content is current and accurate, that there are no misspellings or broken/outdated links, or other issues. Site owners and designated content editors are responsible for this regular maintenance.

The sorts of common edits an area should be able to manage locally include:   

• Cropping and uploading images
• Editing existing text and images (in content blocks, list items, blog posts or event articles)
• Creating new items, posts or articles to add to the existing site layout

• Please email Sitefinity@utmb.edu to get a list a current site editors, be sure to include the url/link to the website.
• Website owners can submit this form to request and manage content editor access to an existing website (add/remove users).

Several training options are available for content editors:

• Review this Web Resources site.
  • Pages are created to guide users through the different steps in editing the website and components in our web content management system, Sitefinity.
• Request a training website and complete the training courses.
• Schedule a training session with a Web Services team member.
  • Gather and bring the content that needs to be edited to this training session; the training session will be focused on a user’s actual site and need.

For major site edits or redesigns—and problems or short-term assistance with the basic items listed above—the university is developing a centralized Web Services team.

The team will be working with areas on new projects and major redesigns, helping identify goals, deliverables and timetables. As part of the process and before meeting with the web team for a planning session, areas will be requested to assemble their ideas, text for edits, images, and website examples.

Note: As this centralized service team is still being assembled, and as there is a significant backlog of needs to be addressed via this new service, we anticipate some initial challenges with supply and demand, especially for new large projects. We appreciate your patience and support.

If your website is already being managed by individuals or a team in your area, and there are no major new needs, no changes or actions are required.

If you’ve been in a department or area that has been relying on support from another area (e.g. the Office of the Provost), as part of this process and structure you’ll be asked to identify at least one individual from your team to serve as web point person and engage in training to be able to manage simple tasks.

As we work through this transition and identify and train these individuals (your content editor), when urgent edits are needed, please submit those updates using the process below.

We use forms and a partially automated workflow to manage and track requests. A Word document, which you'll be given an opportunity to upload, provides a way to offer more detailed or lengthier requests. In that Word document:

• List the specific URLs of the pages within your site requiring work, and the updates/changes required per page 
• If text revisions are needed, share/outline them in the Word document. Please indicate what's being revised if it's a small section in a large body of text. 
• If online documents are being added or revised, include links to your SharePoint documents from your existing collaboration folder (ensure the correct permissions are already applied to the document/link)
• If you are requesting placement of an image or other file type, this is also where you'd upload it.

Final Step: Fill out the form, and attach your Word document when requested.