Accessibility
Accessibility is a legal requirement and we encourage all web authors to complete the Accessibility e-learning (course code NR30504)
We also make sure our content is inclusive because it's the right thing to do. It means people with disabilities that rely on technologies like screen readers, magnifiers or captions will be able to access your content.
Making content accessible guides developers when making decisions about which features and functionality to provide and it means you may need to make alternative choices when working on your website. Choosing school colours is one example because people who are colour blind struggle to distinguish some colours from others.
View our accessibility guidelines.
Adobe platform
The platform the School Website Service uses is Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). It's been developed by the department for schools and offers security, accessibility and a contemporary look and feel that has the flexibility to make your school stand out.
Features
- fully responsive website
- customise the site to suit the needs of your school - theme, colour, homepage, news, global content, content display times and more
- easily drag and drop components onto the page
- accessible and inclusive design
- trustworthy source of information for parents/carers who may be managing multiple schools
- more flexibility to edit global content from the department
- mobile responsiveness and ability to update on any device
- 99.9% uptime.
Analytics
Schools are beginning to take advantage of the powerful insights that come with the School Website Service platform. You'll find out who’s visiting your site and what they’re doing so you can make informed decisions about your content. View more information on analytics.
Regular usage reports for schools is also on our development roadmap.
Apps
Many schools link their website to content from third-party products, including apps. It allows for streamlined content curation, efficient communication and consistency in messaging.
The social media component on your homepage allows your Facebook and Twitter feeds to appear automatically.
Instagram is connected via a link at this stage and your videos uploaded to Schools Video can be embedded on your page. Skoolbag and Schoolzine can be integrated on the page.
Author experience
We aim to develop the platform so the author experience becomes quick, easy and seamless. Improvements take place in increments known as releases and the content of each release is guided by customer feedback.
Banner
We have multiple banner components you can use. The traditional banner has a carousel and video option, while the hero banner has various content layouts with extra buttons, slides and video options.
Calendar
Our Events section allows you to:
- navigate through the events more easily and select the month you’re looking for
- save events to Outlook
- use more characters in your name field when creating an event
- add recurring calendar items, such as same event for the same day, week or month
Besides this, Google and Schoolzine Calendar can also be integrated on your website.
Colleges/campuses
Colleges can continue to have separate websites for their campuses. Information related to multiple campuses is displayed on the footer of your school website.
Content - global
The department pushes out content that applies to most schools. We call it 'global content' and you will receive updates automatically.
- global news items appear with a ‘From the department’ label so your audience can easily tell the difference
- you can unpublish most news items if they’re not relevant to your school.
View more information on global content.
Customer experience
The department puts customers at the centre of decisions about which products to provide and support. It means we actively encourage feedback from schools by email and Yammer. We use this customer experience to guide the way we develop Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) for NSW schools.
Design
Your website gives you more design flexibility to allow your school to reflect what makes it unique. There are multiple themes available. They contain different templates and components and take accessibility into consideration. Font choice and size is determined by the theme you choose.
Domain name
The URL for your site changes when you go live with your AEM website. For security reasons the '.edu' part of the address is replaced by '.gov'. Users looking for your school website will find it when you set up a redirect from your third-party website provider.
Editing
AEM is a powerful platform and editing is quite different from what most authors are used to. Our how-to guides are a step-by-step approach to working on your site and they're are being updated all the time. We conduct full-day online training every month, you can check for session information and register through myPL.
Mobile editing
Your school website can be edited on your mobile device, if necessary. We recommend using your phone to make urgent edits only due to the practicality of navigating a large website on a small screen.
Forms
We'll offer the ability to complete forms online in future but in the meantime PDF forms such as excursion and permission notes will need to be downloaded and completed offline.
The department offers Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365. Both include a forms service and schools are welcome to use them. One note of caution though is around forms that require a signature because they can't be verified. And of course, there's the usual need to maintain privacy when dealing with data you collect.
Images
The Adobe platform accepts standard image file types including JPEG and, PNG. There are no limits on the number of images on your site but we recommend quality over quantity to help you stay within accessibility guidelines. No more than 50 images per gallery.
Uploaded images will be automatically compressed to the required size but avoid using large files as they take longer to load. It means resizing should be part of the image editing process and completed before an image is uploaded to your website. See SWS image guidelines.
Animated gifs
It is not advisable to use animated gifs on your website. They do not meet accessibility requirements.
Mobile responsive
Your website is responsive to mobile devices which means it shapes the text according to the size of the screen and can be read more easily on any device.
Newsletters
- Newsletters on your legacy website on Word or PDF will work on your website.
- You can also load an external link – for example to a newsletter published on a service like ePublisher or Microsoft Sway. As long as there's a unique link for each newsletter published by the electronic newsletter service, you can integrate it to your website.
NSW Education Parent App
The NSW Schools Parent App is a companion to the School Website Service. It displays news and events information from the relevant school websites chosen by the user.
For instance, you can have the information from the public school and high school your children attend.
Learn more on how it works.
Pario websites
Websites that were formerly part of the Pario Website Service (PWS), such as schools with a special purpose (SSP) have also been migrated to the Adobe platform with a simplified information architecture (IA).
Permissions
Permissions to access your website are granted by your Principal. Remember that you should only have either Author or Approver permission and not both.
The Approver role can create and publish content. The author role can create content only and must send for approval to publish.
Social media
Social media component displays post from your school's Facebook, Twitter and Brightcove accounts.
Social links
Social links appear on the footer of your school website. It displays Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and, YouTube icons.
Support
We know that transitioning to a new website means there's a lot to think about and learn and it all takes time.
Customer service
The team respondz to a wide range of product enquiries:
swsproject@detcorpcomms.zendesk.com
Technical support
For when authors find AEM isn't doing what they expect:
swssupport@detcorpcomms.zendesk.com.
User guides
Visit our how-to guides. They are a series of step-by-step instructions and include everything you need to know about working on your website. They're updated continually.
Training
Take advantage of this powerful platform to create a website that's unique to your school. As you gain skills and become more confident you'll be able to develop your website as a communication tool that will strengthen your relationship with your school community.
We conduct full-day online training every month, you can check for session information and register through MyPL In the meantime we recommend you look at:
Versioning
The Adobe platform supports versioning of pages. This means you're less likely to accidentally lose important information while you're editing. You can highlight changes between current and previous versions and restore a page to a previous version. Whole system backup happens automatically and regularly.
Video
Upload your Schools video, YouTube and, Vimeo videos to your school website.
SWS has numerous components supporting video:
There's no limit on the numbers of videos on your site but you should take care not to have too many on a single page.
File size
Your videos should be hosted the video on Schools Video.
See the department's video guidelines for more information on the stages of video production and the resources you will need to produce videos.
