Playbook, university
A first visit to a campus that is not in one place
The question sounds like directions and is not. A first time visitor needs to know which of several sites their appointment is on, whether the shuttle runs on the day they are coming, which building an office is in when the building carries a name nobody outside uses, and what to bring with them. All of that is published somewhere. It is almost never published together.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for first visit questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A university is frequently several sites across one city with a shuttle between them, so the address on the front page is often not the address the visitor needs, and a single course can be taught on two of them in the same week.
- Buildings are known internally by a name and externally by nothing at all, which makes come to the named building useless as an instruction unless the material also gives a street and the entrance visitors should use.
- The first visit means four different things by audience: an offer holder looking round, a new student arriving with original documents, a parent with a car full of boxes, and a returning student who has never been to the second site.
- Arrivals weekend runs a timetable that exists for two days a year, with one way systems, timed unloading slots and volunteers on the gates, so the standing directions page is wrong on exactly the days most people arrive.
How it arrives
- which campus is my course on
- what do i need to bring on enrolment day
- how do i get between the two campuses
- where do i pick up my student card
- what time can i move into halls
- can my parents come with me on the first day
What has to be indexed for this to work
| A site by site page with street addresses | Each site named as the university names it and again as a postal address, with the entrance a visitor should use. Internal building names on their own send people to the wrong end of a city with a correct instruction in their hand. |
|---|---|
| The shuttle timetable and who may board it | Days it runs, first and last departure, whether it runs outside teaching weeks and whether somebody without a card can get on. The vacation answer is the one that is always missing and always needed. |
| The arrivals timetable, published apart from ordinary directions | Unloading slots, the one way route, where a car may wait for twenty minutes, and what happens to somebody who turns up on the wrong day. It contradicts the standing page deliberately, so it has to be its own document. |
| What a new student has to bring in person | Identity documents, qualification certificates, a photograph for the card, and which of those can be uploaded in advance. Written as a checklist it removes most of the queue at the desk. |
The reply
Which site depends on the course, and our campus page lists each one with a street address and the entrance for visitors [1]. The shuttle runs between them on the timetable on that page, and it does not keep the same pattern outside teaching weeks [2]. If you are coming for enrolment, the arrivals page has the unloading slots and the documents to bring [3]. Tell me which course or which office you are heading for and I can point at the right page, or I can pass the question to the team.
It refuses to give one address, because giving one address is the specific failure this question produces on a multi site campus. The line about the shuttle outside teaching weeks is there so a visitor in August does not stand at a stop. And it names the arrivals document separately, since that page is meant to contradict the directions page.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor gives a date and asks whether a named office will be open for them, or says they are travelling from overseas and needs to know what happens if they land outside the arrival window.
Whether a particular office is staffed on your date is not something I can check. Leave me your name, an email and the day you are travelling, and I will pass it to the team who run arrivals.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm that a named office or building will be open on a given day, because teaching weeks, closures and staffing are not visible from here.
- Never give the main university address as the answer to which campus, since a course may be taught nowhere near it.
- Never tell somebody they can park on site during arrivals weekend unless the arrivals document says so for their slot.
- Never say a student card will be ready on the day, because that depends on a photograph and a document check nothing here can see.
Questions
- We publish directions already. Why is this its own page?
- Directions answer where the university is. This question is which of our sites, which building, and on what day. A visitor who reaches the right city and the wrong campus has been failed by a page that was entirely correct.
- Can it tell a new student whether their documents have been accepted?
- No. It cannot see an application or an enrolment record. It can list what has to be brought and what can be uploaded beforehand, which is the part that stops the queue forming at the desk.
- Should the arrivals timetable stay indexed all year?
- Index it, and make sure the visible text carries the year and the dates it covers. Left undated it will be quoted confidently in March to somebody asking about ordinary visitor parking.
Keep reading
- Everything for a universityApplicants and enrolled students ask different things. What a university assistant can answer about entry, fees and visas, and what it must never predict.
- Handling first visit questions in generalWhat to wear, where to park, how long it takes, whether they can bring somebody. Cheap to answer and disproportionately valuable.
- Whose hours does the visitor actually mean?The library, the department office and the service desk keep three sets of hours, and every one of them changes in vacation. What to index.
- Where to leave the car, and why the answer is usually nowhereStudent parking is usually restricted, the shuttle covers the gap, and post to halls needs its own address. Publishable, rarely published.
- Three procedures, and the cost of sending somebody to the wrong oneA complaint about a service, an appeal against a mark and a report about a person are three procedures. Naming the right one is the whole job.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.