Notice anything different?

The news you need, the way you’ve told us you want it – that’s what today’s rollout of the newest version of Jagwire means to you.

Thanks to your feedback on last year’s Internal Communications survey and the dialog we had with several focus groups earlier this year, we’ve retooled our news and information strategy to better fit your stated needs, giving you a beefed-up, easier-to-navigate website and a more comprehensive weekly email.

Background

When we launched Jagwire in October 2015, it was the first step in an ongoing plan to better deliver news and information to the faculty and staff of Augusta University and Augusta University Health. We made a few minor changes along the way, but held off on any major changes until we could hear from you. In November 2016, a little more than a year after Jagwire’s debut, we sent out an Internal Communications survey to find out what you thought we were doing right and where you thought we could improve.

The level of participation was overwhelming. Just under 1,000 readers responded, and the feedback was eye-opening.

We gathered a lot of valuable information, but the main takeaways were that you want the ability to quickly get to the content you care most about and you want a more substantial weekly update delivered to your inbox.

We followed up in February of this year with several focus groups, talking to faculty and staff from both campuses as well as employees of the health system.

As a result, we are excited to rollout a new, reimagined Jagwire that delivers the same valued content with the flexibility you’ve told us you want.

Easier Site Navigation

Now, it’s easier to get to the content you want, thanks to dropdown menus that take you directly to the stories you’re most interested in.

Wonder what’s new at Pamplin? Choose it from the University page dropdown and go right to a page featuring all our Pamplin-related content laid out in an easily scannable format, descending the page from the most recent post.

You can still get an overview of our broader university content on the revamped University page, but now you have a quicker route to the college-level stories you’re most interested in.

The same is true for Health – dropdowns take you to separate pages focusing on the medical center, CHOG and the Georgia Cancer Center.

The Research page is built out the same way, with individual subpages covering medical research, business research, education research and research stemming from science and math, arts and humanities and social sciences.

In addition, we’ve streamlined the Employee page for easier reading, and we’ve even added a Multimedia link to the navigation bar to get you directly to all our great photo galleries and videos.

In all, we’ve added close to 20 new pages of content, all so you can get right to the things you’re interested in.

Quicker Access to Related Content

But we didn’t just confine the changes to the site’s pages. Click into any post and you’ll see that we’ve made it easier to reach other stories you might be interested in. The Jagwire Recommends sidebar on the right of each article gives you a brief overview of the latest featured content from around the enterprise, while the You May Also Like module at the end of each story brings you reading suggestions based on the post you’ve chosen to read. It’s the most recent related content without the hassle of looking for it.

These are just the major changes. We’ve added less obvious tweaks as well, all in an effort to make the Jagwire experience as enjoyable and rewarding as we can make it.

Expanded Email

And did we mention the email?

One of the most consistent responses we received from both the survey as well as the focus groups was the strong desire for a more comprehensive email. So we’ve created a larger weekly email that’s better looking and far more expansive, giving readers a much more extensive overview of our content. Delivered directly to your inbox once a week, it’s not meant to replace the Jagwire site (we still encourage you set Jagwire as your computer’s home page or bookmark it on your browser). Rather, it’s just another way we can give you highlighted content in the most engaging way possible.

More Changes Ahead

These are just the first of several exciting new changes to internal news and information delivery that we’ll be launching over the next several months based on the information received by our survey and focus groups. As our platform grows, so too does our ability to keep the Augusta University family well-informed, and we look forward to continuing to evolve to meet your needs.

Thanks for your continued readership.

Eric Johnson
Managing Editor, Jagwire