Coming soon: Department news pages and RED news widget

Metropolitan State University of Denver colleges, schools, departments and administrative units will soon have new tools to share timely updates, celebrate achievements and connect their communities with relevant University news. 

University Communications and Marketing is launching department news pages, a new feature that allows units to publish and manage their own news and announcements directly on their websites. The initiative is designed to make it easier for units to share information while maintaining University standards for branding, accessibility and content quality. 

In addition to department news pages, UCM is introducing a RED news widget, which automatically displays relevant stories from RED, the University’s newsroom, on department and unit webpages. The widget uses content tagging to surface stories connected to a unit’s area of focus, helping departments highlight University news that matters to their audiences. 

Published content from department news pages will automatically aggregate onto college and unit landing pages, creating a dynamic and up-to-date web presence with less manual effort. Units that already use website posts will be able to migrate their content into the new system. 

“These tools are in response to departments requesting a simple, low-maintenance way to better tell their own stories,” said Chris Mancuso, associate director of digital content strategy. “They’ll also make it easier for audiences to discover relevant content and reduce publishing bottlenecks.” 

The rollout began in June with a pilot group and will expand to additional colleges, schools and units throughout the fall semester. Departments that opt in will receive training and resources covering writing for the web, publishing workflows, accessibility requirements, image standards and content strategy best practices.