Three years ago today we launched a new website. Quite a lot of staff have never heard of it but it’s used by hundreds if not thousands of people every year. That site is the Hi applicant community. The idea was quite simple, create a place where prospective students could ask questions, get to know each other and hear what university life is like from real students before they even get to campus.
The first set of students to use Hi will graduate this July – a frightening thought – but the site has been, I think, a big success and something many other universities have tried to replicate. In 2008, Hi won a CASE Circle of Excellence Award. Hi was also one of our early experiments in rapid development with Web Services, headed at the time by Alison Wildish, went from an initial project proposal to a live site in around five weeks!
After three years it may be time for a refresh of Hi but the lessons we’ve learnt will put us in good stead for whatever replaces it.