What You Can Include on a Page
To make your website more interesting and engaging for users, you can include multimedia and interactive content. Some of the common elements that can be included on University of Adelaide websites are described below.
All content placed on your website, whether it is text, multimedia or interactive, needs to comply with copyright and privacy legislation. This means that permission needs to be obtained from the lecturer or presenter featured in podcasts, audio or video content just as it does for images. The copyright & release form used may be based on the form used by the Marketing & Strategic Communications Office or you can contact Online Media for further information.
For assistance with adding any of these features, or to discuss options for adding multimedia and interactive content to your website, please contact the Online Media team who will be happy to discuss your requirements.
Video
If you have a suitable video that you would like included on your website, there are several ways you can do this. The simplest method, which has the added avantage that it may also encourage more visitors to your site is to add the video to YouTube and then copy the appropriate code to embed in the HTML view for your webpage.
Below is an example of a video from YouTube about the University's Plant Accelerator facility:
Audio
If you have any content you would like to include on your website, an example can be found on the Programs page for Bachelor of Mathematical and Computer Sciences (see screenshot below):
Widgets
Widgets allow you to display featured content or news on your pages. Widgets can be used to either display one specific widget per page or to randomly load different widgets each time the page is refreshed/revisited.
Widgets usually appear in a third column of the page in sites using newer University templates or at the top, right-hand side of the content area of the page in older sites and are primarily used on the front page of the site, although they can also be used to add value to other key pages within the site.
If you would like to use on your pages, please read the Using Widgets page within the Editing Websites in TMS section of this guide.
Blogs
The Online Media team is pleased to offer a free and easy-to-use blog service to help University staff members provide fresh information to the University community.
If you're interested in having a blog, please visit http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/ for more information and to see if you're eligible.
RSS Feeds
RSS is a format for distributing news and other online content produced in one location as a "feed" to other websites or individuals. It is possible to add an RSS feed from an existing source, such as a blog, into a University website. The RSS feed is usually displayed as a list of items in a news widget.
The source of the RSS feed must already exist before it can be included on a University website as a news widget. An example of the source of the RSS feed could be a blog on the University's blog service at http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/.
Online Forms
An online form system is available on the main University web server which providing a means of creating simple online forms without the need for additional programming. Wikmail is used to email the values that people enter into a web form to a specified email address.
If you're an advanced web author, please read the Online Forms page within the advanced information section to help you create an online form.
Image Galleries
The University has a gallery in place for web authors to use on their website. You can find information on how to implement a gallery on your site in the advanced information section.
Image Maps
Image maps allow multiple 'hotspot' links to be added to a single image on a webpage. Advanced web authors can use the Image Maps instructions within the advanced information section to create image maps.
Flash
Use of flash content should be kept minimal. Our information on Flash accessibility will give you more of an insight as to when it is appropriate to use flash on your website, and why it is better to find an alternative where possible.
