Access to Digital Tools
Our digital presence conveys the University of Mississippi to users all around the world. To help members of our community deliver a consistent experience that aligns with our brand, we offer access to a number of digital tools.
Our digital experience is the front door.
Often times, our digital channels are the first experience that our users (especially prospective students) have with our institution. Whether it be a graphic on social media seen by a high school student, an email delivered to the inbox of an alumnus, or a website visited by a parent, it’s important that our digital experience reflect our brand personality and provide an intuitive user experience.
To help members of our community deliver a consistent experience that aligns with our brand, University Marketing & Communications offers training, access and ongoing support to several tools for the delivery of digital content.
Please follow the steps below to receive access to digital tools available from University Marketing & Communications and the Office of Information Technology.
Step 1
Essential to the success of our online brand experience is our commitment to digital accessibility. For more information and resources related to electronic accessibility, see our University accessibility statement. To support that commitment, web accessibility training is required prior to any faculty, staff, or student gaining access to the university’s web content management system, email marketing system, and our social media management system.
Representatives in Accessibility Solutions have a number of resources and training courses available to all community members and may grant access to the necessary Blackboard trainings required for all users. Please visit this site and complete the form. Be sure to select the “web” option under “Digital Accessibility Course.” Upon completion of this course, you will receive a certificate from an accessibility specialist within 48-72 hours. Be sure to save your certificate of completion as you will need to upload it to request access to the following systems.
Step 2
The university’s website, olemiss.edu, is managed through the Cascade8 content management system (CMS). Prior to requesting CMS access, please review our web governance plan to become familiar with web content community expectations and standards. That document, combined with accessibility as a standard, allows our campus community to manage our website as a valued university asset that includes flexible, mobile-responsive page design options with a clearly defined data infrastructure and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Under our web governance plan, supervisors of staff wishing to gain access to the CMS must first complete a CMS User Role Submission form. Once that form has been submitted and the web acessibility course has been completed, the individual may request access to the website via the form below.
Email marketing is an important tactic that enables us to plan, create, and distribute content to specific audiences within the extended university community. Email marketing is also a federally regulated distribution channel that requires heightened levels of institutional accountability. The university maintains an enterprise account with myEmma, an email marketing platform that offers current distribution lists for campus units to communicate with all segments of the university community.
To ensure compliance with both the CAN-SPAM Act and federal digital accessibility standards, the Web Content Management Team in University Marketing & Communications is charged with the development of email marketing standards, processes, approvals, and resources. These efforts are designed to preserve the effectiveness of university email outreach while also protecting brand integrity.
Once the web acessibility course has been completed, the individual may request access to the website via the form below.
Social media is one of the top ways we reach prospective and current students. With an evolving set of tools that changes frequently, it can be a struggle to manage and maintain multiple accounts on behalf of the university.
The social media team in University Marketing & Communications manages and oversees an enterprise account with Sprout, a social media management tool. In addition, the team has created several resources for social media managers across campus including best practices, guidelines, and how to ensure adherence to the university’s social media policy.
Once the web acessibility course has been completed, the individual may request access to the website via the form below.
University Marketing & Communications has procured Canva for Teams to provide access for our colleagues in colleges, schools, departments, units, and centers to pre-made, university-branded templates for the digital space.
Built specifically for social media channels, templates will include event, quote, feature, and announcement graphics to name a few. Brand colors, fonts and official lockups for each requesting unit will also be pre-loaded into the platform for use.