INFORMATIONAL LANDING PAGES

Create a web page (or “landing page”) to promote your OER initiative and the resources available to support your campus community.

By providing your community with a website “home” to find information about your OER initiative, it gives people a reliable place to find information, ask questions, and get help. Creating a landing page – a single web page that links people to helpful information and resources – is an easy place to start.

Eventually a single page might grow into something bigger, but starting with a single page helps you hone in on the most essential messages and information you want people to know.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Identify the audience and purpose of the page. Articulate who you are creating the landing page for, and what you want them to do there.  Purposes might include:
   • Toolkit: Provide resources to equip people with the tools necessary to promote and/or use OER.
     • Example: Follett web page targeting Follett store managers helping faculty find OER course materials
   • Promotional: Share information, key messages, and showcase institutional OER efforts and resources.
     • Example: Ivy Tech web page
   • Resource Center: A web page can serve as an effective tool to centralize a collection of resources for a workshop, grant project, or OER committee.
     • Example: Cerritos College OER workshop page.
2. Connect with your webmaster … or become your own webmaster: What are the options on the website where the page might appear? The page could be framed on the webpage, and live somewhere else, or you could place the information directly on the website.

Having trouble getting website support? Consider putting together your own site using a free and simple-to-use tool like Google Sites.

1. 1. Select resources you want to include. The resources you choose should all support your primary purpose(s) for the landing page.

• Toolkit: Toolkits often include resources like slides, videos, course lists, webinars, email templates, recordings and strategic planning recommendations.  

• Promotional: Consider including background of OER at the institution, link to existing OER courses, cost savings to date, impact on students, links to OER courses used by the institution, adoption process, and testimonials.

• Resource Center: These sites typically include resources provided for a particular event or initiative, as well as materials that may be useful on an ongoing basis for people working actively with OER. Consider including slides, agendas, links to a course catalog or LMS course shells, open licensing information, OER resources, grant requirements, institutional resources, and Google Drive links to helpful tools, templates, planning documents, detailed information, or collaborative/shared working documents.

• Clearly present the call(s) to action. Every landing pages should invite visitors to take action of some sort – and what that action is depends on your audience and the purpose of the site. As you design the content, make sure you present it in a way that invites people to take a next step. Common calls to action include:

1. 1. • Request More Info
      • Register for [event]
      • Download [resource]
      • Adopt an OER Course

• Announcement or press release pointing to your Landing Page: If you want to draw attention to the webpage, about the time that you launch, you might consider putting an announcement on the institution’s website homepage. A press release is another option. It should point to content on your web page and the institutional website so both links get a little homepage boost.

Attributions:

Photo by Thomas Lefebvre on Unsplash