Why you need to maintain your content

It's important to keep your web content up to date and factually accurate.

If you don't maintain your web pages regularly, staff, students, and members of the public could read information that's incorrect and misleading.

This could include:

• dates in the past
• facts or instructions that have changed
• information about things that no longer exist, or no longer matter to users, such as teams that have been disbanded
• videos and images that are out of date
  

The Organisation or Group that owns a page is responsible for keeping it up to date.

Create a content maintenance plan

Setting up a content maintenance plan will help you make sure that:

• you make changes to information at the right time
• your pages are accurate and easy to find
• other Typecase users don't duplicate your content
• everyone in your team is aware of the content you have on the website and who's responsible for maintaining it

The simplest way to set up a content maintenance plan is to:

1. Create a shared document listing all the content items you have on the website.
2. Use a shared calendar to set reminders for making changes.

Creating a shared document

You can request an inventory of all content owned by your Organisation or Group by emailing web-support@bath.ac.uk. You can use the inventory to carry out a content audit.

We'll provide the inventory as an Excel spreadsheet listing all your pages. On the spreadsheet, you can record:

• the names and URLs of your pages
• the status of your pages, either published or in draft
• the people responsible for maintaining each page
• the subject expert who can fact-check each page
• when pages need to be updated or unpublished
• when pages have been updated or unpublished
• the details of any content you plan to make in future

You can share the spreadsheet with anyone in your team who needs to see it.

Creating a shared calendar

When you have a list of all your content, you can create a shared calendar so you and your team can see when updates are due.

You can use any shared calendar that suits you and your team, for example:

• a Microsoft Planner board
• a Teams group calendar

Use the calendar to:

• set reminders for upcoming changes or for when new information is available
• assign tasks to members of your team

Assign roles for creating and updating content

It's important to decide who in your team is responsible for creating, updating, and reviewing each of your pages.

There should be at least two people involved in every piece of content published on the website. Decide who in your team will:

• write or edit the content
• review the content

The roles you assign could be based on your levels of Typecase user access so the person reviewing the content can also publish it. However, it's more important that they're a subject expert so they can check all the facts are correct.

Everyone who creates or edits content on the University website must have completed the Typecase training course.

You should also make sure someone is responsible for regularly checking your content for out-of-date information or pages you need to unpublish. This person does not need access to Typecase.

Job role changes

If a Typecase user in your team leaves their role, you must reassign all the content they're responsible for to someone else.

If there's no one left in your team with publishing access, email web-support@bath.ac.uk

You can ask the Digital Content team to:

• update, review, and publish pages as a short-term solution
• review content created by someone on your team to see if they're ready to have publishing access

Unpublish and delete unneeded content

Unpublishing content items

You should always unpublish content items that are no longer needed on the website. These will stay in your list of content on Typecase as 'Draft' pages, so you can republish them later if you need to.

Unpublishing pages improves the website and our users' experience because it means fewer web pages are presented in search results.

Before you unpublish a page, make sure you change or remove any links to it from other pages. If other departments or teams are likely to link to the page, make sure you ask them to check their pages too.

How to unpublish a content item

You must be an Admin or Editor in Typecase to unpublish a content item.

If you're an Editor, you can only unpublish content items owned by your primary organisation.

If you're unable to unpublish a content item, you can email web-support@bath.ac.uk to ask the Digital Content team to do it for you.

To unpublish a content item:

1. Find the Typecase edit screen for the item you want to unpublish.
2. Write a reason for unpublishing the page in the text box beneath 'Remove this item from the live website' - this keeps a record of the reason and explains to other users why the page isn't needed on the live website.
3. Click the 'Unpublish' button.

Deleting content items

If a page is no longer needed on the website and you know you won't need it again, you should ask for it to be deleted.

Deleting a page removes it from the live website and from Typecase. This improves the speed and user experience of Typecase as there are fewer content items for the system to manage.

Only Admins can delete pages from Typecase.

You can ask the Digital Content team to delete a content item by emailing web-support@bath.ac.uk