By Sophia Oppedisano Editorial Staff Framingham State launched an updated version of its public-facing website, framingham.edu, along with a reorganized MyFramingham intranet, as part of a larger University rebrand this summer. The external and internal information housed on framingham.edu and MyFramingham, respectively, have undergone a design overhaul and reorganization. The cost of the framingham.edu redesign was $621,125, according to Executive Director of Marketing and Communications Dan Magazu. Magazu was involved in the project as director of communications before being promoted to executive director of marketing and communications, when the website redesign became “[his] project” in May 2024 after Avril Capers' retirement from the executive director of marketing and communications role. The public-facing content, meant to draw in prospective students and their families, is housed on framingham.edu. It was previously a page that served as a landing point for current students, faculty, and staff in addition to potential new students and their families. The choice to redesign the public-facing content for framingham.edu was a “University decision amongst the Board of Trustees and Executive Staff,” Magazu said. “It had been probably seven or eight years, and the old site was starting to feel a little outdated. Your website is your number-one marketing tool. It was important to get a fresh site up there,” he added. Magazu said the framingham.edu redesign project began in 2021 and took approximately three years to complete. The website was launched as part of the University’s plans to rebrand other outward-facing marketing tools such as the new logo. The rebrand encompassed “what makes a university’s visual identity,” Magazu said. This includes colors, fonts, logos, and the use of photography. “We're talking about the identifiers of the University, so people see it and hopefully think, ‘That's Framingham State,’” he added. University President Nancy Niemi said, “It's so much better because you've got the distinction between the public-facing purpose of the website and all the [internal] business we take care of that was confused in the old version.” Niemi added the new website adds a level of clarity to the University’s brand and provides clear information on topics such as cost and what students can expect when they enroll. She noted the changes may affect the University community, but “there are some things [we] can't ask permission for.” “We knew we needed a new website. We knew we needed a new marketing and branding strategy,” Niemi said. The new brand is something Niemi’s administration had a hand in creating when she was appointed president in 2022. “Our tagline is ‘Proudly public and truly transformative.’ I think that did come in part from me … because I wanted to be that bold. People don't want a mission statement - they want to hear what you are, and I make no apologies for being a public institution that serves our community, and we're going to do it better than anybody else,” Niemi said. If students, faculty, and staff have problems with the website or SharePoint, Niemi invites them to “help us make what we do have work for you. “It's fine to be critical of something because that's how we get better. That just takes people saying, ‘OK, here's what I think is wrong. Here's what I think can help,’ and let's work together to make it better,” she said. The logo and the site were both designed by Primacy, a branding and marketing company that advertises a specialty in higher education, according to its website. Magazu said Primacy worked closely with the University community, using focus groups, surveys, and meetings with campus leadership. “It's a very collaborative process,” he added. Dan Campagna, account director for Primacy, said, “[Primacy] had a defined scope,” and the rebrand and the website redesign went “hand in hand.” Primacy’s role in the general rebrand, which students might recognize as the new logo or new fonts on campus, involved phases of research that culminated in the company working with the University to discern “Who Framingham State is as a university, and how we want to represent ourselves … through communication in our branding,” Campagna said. He added the rebrand was highlighted by the redesign of framingham.edu to “better reflect Framingham and its community” as well as “take the new brand and express it.” According to Campagna, Primacy’s role in the website was specific to its redesign, not the content it presents. “We assisted with content, but I don't know that we made any key decisions in terms of what content specifically was on the site. We did help with organization and we had a level of testing in there as well to make sure that if folks were looking for specific types of content, that it was represented and labeled accurately, but that was kind of the extent of our involvement.” The website is now a marketing tool for prospective students and their families, according to Campagna. He said the website and the brand should convey Framingham State as “a university that meets students wherever they are in their journey, and can help them from whatever their starting point is.” One of the goals of the newly designed marketing-based site is to draw in new students and increase enrollment, said Iris Godes, vice president of enrollment management. Godes worked closely with Magazu and Primacy on the framingham.edu redesign. The project moved at “warp speed,” according to Godes. “This is … a two-year project that we did in less than a year.” Godes, like Magazu, joined the project after it had already begun when she was hired in May 2023 and “the whole rebrand part had just been completed,” she said. “I got more heavily involved when we were pinning down what the design was going to look like and then more so with the content and the split between the website and what MyFramingham became on this SharePoint site. “The goal was to be very modern and bold, and it seemed to fit that bill,” she said. However, Godes said things became more complicated when it came to the “nitty-gritty” of placing the content into the design. She said the focus then shifted to the question of, “OK, here's the template for this particular page, and is this template working?” This “nitty-gritty stuff” is not what current Framingham State students are looking at because “now, hopefully, you're mostly on that SharePoint site,” Godes said. The SharePoint site is strictly meant for the internal community. It serves as a portal for current students, faculty, and staff. Godes said she has received feedback from faculty and staff that framingham.edu is tricky to navigate and they can’t find what they’re looking for. “It's because you're not supposed to be there - it's not designed for you anymore. “[Faculty and staff] were trying to circumvent the navigation. It’s a completely different approach. … I think it has been a little bit of a challenge for the University community,” she said. The line has been drawn between the content students, faculty, and staff have access to on the SharePoint site and the marketing content that framingham.edu utilizes to draw in prospective students. “If you think about the amount of content when you get into trying to market the University to prospective students and their families and what our current students need access to - that's a huge amount of information. Maintaining it is huge, and the messaging is completely different,” Godes said. The drawbacks to having all information in one place on the old site was the University ran the risk of confusing potential new students because the marketing was more successful in serving the internal audience, according to Godes. She added the shift to separate internal and external pages “makes total sense” because the division of information serves both communities and eliminates the amount of information recruits have to comb through. It is difficult to make a projection of how the website will specifically impact enrollment, Godes said. Enrollment had been decreasing for many years but has risen slightly for AY 2023-24. As part of the initial rebrand stages, new material was going out to prospective students who had expressed interest in the University, which Godes believes contributed to the higher enrollment numbers. The materials include a radio ad, ads on the MetroWest transit buses, and digital content such as Google ads. There are also printed materials, including a “viewbook,” postcards, financial-aid information, and then a final “yield piece” that alerts students to their admission to the University. “The materials that were going out were much stronger than what we had done before, tapping into that messaging that went into a new communication plan. … A more modern, current, stronger voice did, I think, have an impact on this incoming class,” Godes said. She added the website will complement these new advertising and print materials now that it has been fully launched for AY 2024-25. President Niemi said she believes the website will contribute to a rise in enrollment because the website represents “the vitality of who we want to be. “We're much better now at updating content, making sure that we look the way we want to look, and [being] responsive,” she added. Godes said she believes the University’s brand is “high quality, lower cost, and proudly public.” For faculty, framingham.edu used to be decentralized, and it allowed them to go in and edit their own department pages. Godes said she has received feedback that faculty are “excited” they no longer have to worry about their own pages. “On the marketing side, we want to make sure that there's consistency in messaging, that there are certain standards that are followed, so a student who's exploring isn't having a completely different experience from one page to another. This allows us to stay connected, stay consistent, and stay on brand. It relieves the faculty of that responsibility,” Godes said. If members of the University encounter issues with the site, they are encouraged to email web@framingham.edu to create a ticket that the marketing staff will manage. Benjamin Alberti, professor of anthropology and the interim FSU chapter president for the Massachusetts State College Association (MSCA), spoke from his perspective as a professor about the new design of framingham.edu. “When I started to use it, I noticed that both the functionality and the content were seriously problematic,” he said. Alberti noted the search feature on the website does not accurately call up anything that might be related to his search. He also commented on how the design is more functional on a cell phone than on a desktop. He said he’s experienced some frustration over missing content on the site, including information such as his office number as well as the office numbers of other members of his department. “That's how students find us. That's how we find each other. That's how we send stuff through inter-departmental mail. That information was available on the previous website. It's halfway through the semester and this is still like this,” he said. Alberti is a professor in the department of sociology and criminology. He said the chair of the department submitted material for the website that gave information about the programs they offer. “There was material on the previous website about our program, specifically, and that material has been replaced by some clearly AI-generated general stuff about sociology or criminology that is not our material. … It's too general. There are also images of faculty from other departments doing things as part of our program on our page, and they had nothing to do with it,” he said. There is a photo on the landing page for the sociology and criminology department of a chemistry professor who teaches at the University as well as what Alberti believes are “stock photos” of students in classrooms. “What really upsets me is the fact that the faculty at this University and administrators and librarians put their heart and soul into this job. This is the public-facing [website] of our University. We pride ourselves on our teaching, on our scholarship, and our service to the University. “If this is the impression that's been created of all the good stuff that we are doing, then it's absolutely appalling. It denigrates all of the hard work of the faculty [and] the passion of the faculty. It completely sucks all that out of the room, and we're left with an appalling hash of a website,” Alberti said. MyFramingham is a portal for students to access information about advising, billing, CASA, Residence Life, and their DegreeWorks. It is essential for students as well as faculty and staff. According to Executive Director of Enterprise Application Services Marsha Bryan, $64,211 “on the temporary contractor for the rollout of SharePoint Online.” Patrick Laughran, associate vice president and chief information officer for Information Technology Services (ITS), said, “All other costs were part of our annual subscription to Microsoft 365. … We also handled the vast majority of the work to configure, train, and roll out the solution ‘in-house’ within the ITS-Enterprise Application Services Team.” Microsoft 365 Solutions Specialist Jackie (Lovell) Harrington said the move to SharePoint “made the most sense” because of the University’s contracts with Microsoft 365. SharePoint is not part of the rebranding initiative. However, because of the framingham.edu project, “everything needed a home,” Harrington said. The original MyFramingham portal was scheduled for “end of life” by the vendor as of June 30, 2023. “That drove our decision to make SharePoint our MyFramingham portal as well as to make it more of a one-stop shopping experience so people aren’t going to SharePoint for one thing, and MyFramingham for another thing,” Harrington said. According to Harrington, faculty and staff had open training sessions last year, and each department that joined the SharePoint project has its own site. “The Registrar's Office has their own site. Student Accounts has their own site. … We worked closely with those departments to get a site ready for the MyFramingham system,” she said. Fifty departments joined the SharePoint project and now have their own sites within the MyFramingham system, she added. There was a soft launch of the new MyFramingham on March 1, 2023 and a small group of students was consulted prior to that date, according to Harrington. “We were seeing positive reviews on the look and everything like that. Then, once the soft launch occurred, that's when we opened it up to anybody - faculty, staff, students - to provide feedback and change the system based on feedback we received,” she added. Harrington said the site is still “possibly evolving” based on feedback. She also noted that departments are able to edit their own sites, similar to how departments could edit their pages when that information was on framingham.edu. The feedback has been “generally positive - you always find the few negative things that come through, but [it’s been] mostly positive and constructive. Mainly what I see are broken links that occur, which happens working out the kinks of a new system,” she said. K-la Vazquez, a junior, said the SharePoint site is overwhelming to look at because there is so much information on the homepage and the drop-down menus can be confusing to navigate. “I never know where I'm going. I'll click on DegreeWorks, and then I'll try to go back and see the class catalogs and stuff like that, and it’s like, ‘Wait, I don't even know where I'm going.’ It gets so confusing for me,” she said. Samantha Reynolds, a senior, said MyFramingham confused her even before the portal moved to SharePoint. “I was just starting to get used to the other one, and now suddenly, I was bombarded with a brand new website. … I can't really find most of the stuff I need,” she said. Reynolds said it would be helpful if the search bar on the website could further refine her searches instead of the first results leading her back to the student homepage. Leticia Rita Santos, a senior, said registration proved difficult for her this year on the new MyFramingham website. “I kept getting an error message because the website kept redirecting me to a different page. As a senior, I felt frustrated because I was unaware of what I was navigating,” she said. Ainslee Caton, a senior, said, “It took me over half an hour to find the form for me to add a minor onto my degree because it is now hidden away and very inaccessible.” Caton added the site’s inaccessibility is exemplified by how many clicks it takes her to get to a specific page. “I think I've counted about five to seven clicks just to get to Canvas,” she said. Lucy Forgit, a junior, said she believes the website is hard to navigate because she had gotten used to the previous version. “You can't find anything. You can't find any of your logins from the website. Now, [you have to] go through three pages to find MyFramingham, and then go to your login - it's terrible,” she added. Forgit said SharePoint should be easier to navigate to from framingham.edu. Magazu sent a campus-wide email Oct. 24 to let students know they can directly access MyFramingham from framingham.edu using the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the framingham.edu homepage. Avry Guilbert, a senior, said she likes the website. “It just looks a little more modern. It's keeping up with our new logo. It looks aesthetically pleasing, but there's definitely some trouble navigating it.” Guilbert believes some of the confusion could be attributed to there being “a lot of places that look like they could be the right spot for the right thing you're looking for.” She added the menus can be misleading. A student-worker for Information Technology Services who asked to remain anonymous said they feel the new MyFramingham is “really convoluted” compared to the old model. “The saying ‘form over function’ goes really well here because I feel like, sure, the new website looks prettier, but I feel that for students and faculty, it's not very easy to navigate,” they said. The student-worker said they receive a “decent amount” of requests for help navigating the SharePoint site from students. They added the site could use some simplification in terms of streamlining information. “I think the main thing is just to have quick and easy access to things that people need, especially for relevant information, like courses or Outlook,” they said. At the top of the SharePoint homepage is a link for students to use if they need assistance navigating the SharePoint site. Harrington said, “We’re always welcoming feedback here at IT. I want to hear what people have to say if there's any constructive criticism to make the system better.”