University Information Services - Staff Learning & Development course timetable

Join the Optimise your content training programme for website editors and owners.

This training programme will:

• get your site ready to move to the new Drupal content management system
• help you improve your web content
• embed content standards and introduce consistency
• reduce website maintenance for your team or department
• provide a better user experience

By signing up for the programme, you get access to:

• 6 live, online sessions where we'll explain the tasks to do, give examples, and answer questions
• personalised information and data for your website
• templates and step-by-step instructions
• support from content designers and peers
• a dedicated Teams channel and drop-in sessions as you work through the tasks

Sign up

Sign up for this cohort has now closed. You can follow the course with recordings of sessions, which will be available on the Content Community SharePoint site.

If you would like to receive notification about the next time we run the course, email contentdesign@uis.cam.ac.uk.

UIS facilitates a mentoring scheme exclusively for the University's IT community and UIS' internal staff.

Mentoring can be a handy tool in supporting colleagues to develop their professional lives and careers, in both roles as a mentor and mentee.

This is a welcome event (Unit 3) and part of the UIS' Mentoring learning journey, for all mentees and mentors enrolled in the 2024-25 programme. This interactive workshop is designed to give an overview and introduction to mentoring, practice some essential skills needed for mentors and mentees, mistakes to avoid, and become familiar with some simple models and tools to support the mentoring partnership and maximise its value and impact.

UIS is offering everyone the chance to join a virtual speed mentoring event. This dynamic learning and networking activity will provide the opportunity to speak to some of UIS’ senior leaders and managers from diverse disciplines.

UIS mentors involved with the event:

• Chris Russell - Interim Director
• Holly Cox – Sr. Product Manager
• Gabby Ahmadi Assalemi – CISO (Technology Operations)& Interim COO for Security and Technology Operations
• Kate Livingstone – Head of Digital Transformation
• Simon Clarke – Head of Infrastructure Programme
• Brent Stewart - Engineer Manager

• A discussion-style session with a brief overview of how IT works in the University of Cambridge, what is expected of an IT professional working within a College, Department or other University Institution, and what resources are available for you.
• Provided for any (relatively) new IT staff (or those who may have missed this).
• The session will also introduce opportunities to network with other University IT professionals, and key contacts for supporting IT staff.

Join us on World Usability Day to find out about user-centred design and usability.

Usability contributes to good user experience. Both design and content help make webpages and online services more usable.

When people can use a page or service successfully, they need less help from support staff.

You’ll see examples from real Cambridge projects and be able to ask questions.

Oxford AI and ML Competency Centre is developing a range of initiatives and supporting various AI-related projects across the University. Our Oxford colleagues would like to discuss potential collaboration with Cambridge colleagues, to share their work and better understand our interest in AI, explore how we are working with AI, and discuss our future plans - potentially working together. The Oxford Centre aims to focus on multiple fronts, including administration, research, and education. For our meeting and collaboration, we will concentrate on how AI can support administrative tasks and operational processes within the University, as there is significant demand in this area.

This initial 45-minute meeting will include a 15-minute presentation from Oxford, a 10-minute overview of Cambridge initiatives, and the remaining time for questions and open discussion. The goal is to identify common interests so that next year we can organize a larger, face-to-face meeting with other staff, to further develop our shared objectives.

Hope you will join us!

Accessible content is easy to find, understand and interact with, regardless of the user's ability or the device they are using.

One common misconception is that web accessibility only helps people who have a permanent disability. Though 1 in 5 of us in the UK have a disability, all of us experience temporary and situational disabilities during our lifetime. This session builds on existing accessibility guidance from the content community.

This content community event will also cover:

• Updates about new WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards
• Common content accessibility issues in Drupal, SharePoint and Shorthand, and how to fix them
• Tools and tips for creating accessible web pages, videos, documents, social media posts and more

The session is for everyone interested in creating content.

A recording of this event will be available on the Content Community SharePoint site for anyone who cannot attend.

Are you comfortable writing and editing content? Do you feel ready to make your content more accessible for people with disabilities and improve the overall user experience for everyone?

If you are, we'd like to invite you to join us for this month's content accessibility workshop.

Together we'll work through a piece of your own content, from your website or intranet, to make it more accessible wherever we can. We'll use a handy checklist to help us, which includes:

• heading styles
• text styles
• colours and contrast
• alternative text for images
• captions and transcripts
• internal and external links
• file links and downloads

Please note:

Workshop places are limited. Only book a space if you're sure that you can attend. If you do need to cancel, please cancel 48 hours in advance so that someone else can attend.

In today’s digital landscape, a homepage must do more than just look attractive - it needs to guide users effectively.

In this workshop Dominic James will show you how removing over‑complicated visuals and extraneous copy clarifies what your users see first. You’ll then join in interactive exercises to audit, simplify, and wireframe your homepage content—ensuring that every element, from title to call‑to‑action, is purpose‑driven.

Please note that this session is CMS and platform agnostic.

For specific Drupal guidance on homepages and instructions on editing a homepage in Drupal 10, refer to the UIS instructions on editing a homepage in Drupal 10.

For this session, we'll look at top tasks.

Top tasks are the things that matter most to your users. There are usually around 5 to 10 main ones. Once you identify them, you'll be able to create content that gives users what they need.

By the end of the session, you'll:

• understand what top tasks are
• be able to find your site's top tasks
• have some case studies and resources that you can read in your own time

For this session, we'll look at card sorting.

Card sorting is an established method that can help you find out how different people interpret and categorise information. You can use card sorting results to improve the way content is organised and labelled on your website.

Whether you're planning a new site in Sharepoint or want to improve an existing Drupal site, card sorting can help you.

Join us for this month's session to:

• get information about card sorting and how it works
• learn how to plan and run card sorting sessions
• be inspired by case studies
• have a go at card sorting by taking part in our card sorting exercise

This session is a whistle-stop tour of common areas of Google Analytics 4, and the scenarios its data can help you analyse.

This session is suitable for complete beginners and those wanting to learn the basics of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Universal Analytics has been replaced by GA4 and uses a whole new interface, those still using UA will need to switch over to GA4.

We will introduce you to Google Analytics 4 and how to set it up. We will look at what metrics are tracked for your website and how that is different to old Universal Analytics. We will explore how to use that data when optimising your website.

In the second half of the session, we will go through how to get Google Analytics 4 running on your website. This will include, creating a Google Analytics 4 property, sending in the request, and adding additional users.

During this session find out what competitor analysis is, how you can do it, and what the benefits are.

Competitor analysis is a technique you can use to research your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. It's a useful way to get ideas for improving your content. You can also use competitor analysis to find gaps in your existing content.

The Content Community is providing four workshops on Monday 31 July to learn new skills or refresh existing ones.

During this session discover the most important process for improving and maintaining your site: the content audit.

Led by Lauren Parnell, content designer in UIS communications team.

See related courses below.

We are providing four workshops to learn new skills or refresh existing ones, with the Content Community.

During this session learn how to create accessible content for your users and avoid accessibility common errors.

Led by content designer Chris Watson and content design team lead Joanne Back from UIS.

See related courses below.

We are providing four workshops to learn new skills or refresh existing ones, with the Content Community this month. You'll also put knowledge into practice with interactive examples.

During this session find out what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is, why it is important and how you can use it to make your content more visible in search engines.

Led by content designers Lana Bozovic and Chris Watson from UIS.

See related courses below.