Information bank

Accessibility

Accessibility is a legal requirement and we encourage all web authors to complete the Accessibility e-learning course (code NR30504).

Accessibility means providing equal access to information for all our audiences, with special consideration for people with disability. Choosing theme 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 (SWS) 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.

Album

A display of images - just like a photo album.

Alt text

A brief sentence used to describe an image for a screen reader user.

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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.

Approver

Someone who approves changes or updates that have been made on the school website. Approving the changes will publish them. Approvers can also make their own changes and publish them.

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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.

Archive

A section of the website where all outdated content is placed for reference. Archive pages should be created using content landing page template. 

Assets

The document and pictures you use on your site. Assets are similar to attachments in an email. 

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Author

Someone who makes changes or updates to parts of the school website but cannot publish them. They send a request to publish, called a Workflow, to their school website approver.

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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.

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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.

Breadcrumb

A type of navigation that shows the user where the page they are viewing is located within a website.

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Brightcove

The video streaming platform integrated with the School Website service.

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Browser

The program you use to access the web. This might be something like Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.

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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.

Call to action (CTA)

Something designed to make users click on it. For example, Read more or Our latest newsletter. 

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Caption

A short description that accompanies an image. Learn how to add an image with a caption.

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Captions

The text version of the audio in a video. This is usually the dialogue and important sounds, like an indication of who is speaking, noises and laughter. Find out how to upload a video and create captions.

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Card

A flexible container that organises images and text which looks similar to a playing card. The card ensures the image and text is organised in the same way regardless of the screen size it is viewed through. Learn how to create a card.

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Chatbot

A robot that simulates the conversation you would have with a real person. Chatbots are usually used for technical support. Read about ViTA - our SWS virtual assistant.

Checkbox

A square box that can be ticked to indicate you are selecting it, for example, Pick your interests from the list. More than one checkbox can be ticked at a time.

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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.

Component

An area on a web page where you can add certain types of content, such as text, an image or a video. They are like the building blocks of the page. Learn how to add components to your web page.

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Content - global

The department pushes out global 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.

Content management system (CMS)

A program that creates and manages websites without the author needing to know how to code in HTML and CSS.

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Cookie

A small bit of information left on your browser by a website you visit.

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Crawl

When a program collects information about web pages.

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Crop

Removing unwanted parts from an image. Learn how to edit images under Assets.

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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.

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Decorative images

Decorative images don’t add information to the content of a page.

For example, the information provided by the image might already be given using adjacent text, or the image might be included to make the website more visually attractive.

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Default browser

The browser that opens when you click on a link.

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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.

Digital asset

A file you will use on your website, typically a picture or document, but could also be something like a presentation or spreadsheet.

Digital asset manager (DAM)

The space that holds your documents and images. Here you can move, edit and delete them. Learn about Assets.

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Document

A PDF, Word file or HTML web page that provides information to a user.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Gallery

A display of all of the albums on your site.

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Global content

Content that comes from us (the department) for use on your site, like a news article or enrolment information.

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Global footer

The bottom section of your website. It contains important links that appear on each page of your site.

Global header

A set of important links on the very top part of your website. The department's website, a Google translate button and the log in drop-down will appear on every page of your site.

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Hyperlink

A section of text that, when selected, will download something, take you to a new page, or take you to a new location (like Back to top).

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Image command set (ICS)

Calendar files that automatically generate on your event page and can be opened in different calendar programs, like Outlook and iCalendar.

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.

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