Stories are useful tools to help you create pages for current information that may not be as useful or relevant as time passes. Stories can help highlight upcoming or recent events to draw more attention. They’re also useful for sharing information related to current news—international, national, or campus-wide—that affects your department. Stories can also be shared among departments, featured on your department website’s homepage, and archived in an easy-to-navigate place so the information is never lost.
Why create Stories? Why not create new pages or edit ones we already have?
While current pages should still be maintained and updated with current information where applicable, if you feel that this information will need to be deleted as time passes, you may want to create a Story for it.
Creating a new page for information that may become obscure after a certain amount of time passes could lead to:
The page not being maintained or updated after it is no longer relevant
The page becoming buried by newer or more relevant information
The page becoming lost/orphaned
A lost/orphaned page is one that does not have a direct link found on your website, so it can only be found through search engines, though that is not always possible, either. This can lead to completely lost information, and lost pages can cause your website to be overtaxed with information it isn’t using.
Stories allow you to create that page without having to worry about maintaining it as it becomes less relevant; you won’t have to worry about having a direct link to it on any of your main pages, as Stories can be found, searched through, and collected on a page of their own.
You may want to add some information to relevant pages you have already created because:
A specific event is recurring, and you are simply updating dates and times as needed
Recent news or information is relevant to or updates information already found on your department’s page
You can still add this information to those pages, but you may want to consider creating Stories for them as well. You may want to do this because:
Stories can be featured on your department’s home page, highlighting event dates or new information
Stories can be shared between departments, allowing the information to reach more people
Stories don’t need to be deleted once the information isn’t directly relevant anymore, allowing people interested in your department’s history to find old events or information
Why should we share Stories between departments?
Some information is relevant to multiple departments. Sharing this information or displaying information from another department on your department’s website can help students, parents, or faculty find more information that may be relevant to them.
Why don’t we just delete old information?
It is important to make sure that your website’s content is up-to-date and accurate, but sometimes having old information still available can be beneficial. Keeping that information in an easy to navigate place can help people:
Learn the history of your department
Discover recurring events that have already passed that they may want to attend in the future
Why is there no underline option?
In the Stories module, there is no tool to allow you to underline text. This is because an underlined piece of text can appear like a hyperlink to your readers. Underlined text that is mistaken to be a hyperlink could cause your readers any distress if they believe the link to be broken. It could also cause confusion if there are other hyperlinks in your Story; if your readers see text that is simply underlined, and then see more text with the same formatting as the previously underlined text, they may not notice that it is a hyperlink, and they could be less likely to click it.
Why is there no header one or header two options?
Headers one and two are used in the site headers themselves. As such, using those in your Stories would cause confusion or an issue with the readability of your site.