Top tips for a great PWP

We’ve created a round-up of ten top tips for making the most of your PWP. We have also created a more comprehensive guide to Make an impact with a great PWP,

1. Keep your basic details up to date

Your title, name, department, location and assistant's details are already in the College directory. It's well worth checking from time to time to make sure the basics are right.

 2. Use a professional photo

If you’re still in shadow, it’s time to make a change and reveal yourself with a photo, preferably a professional quality one. This always helps to make your pages personable and relatable. Imperial has fairly regular photoshoots for free, so it’s worth checking when the next session is.

3. Keep your published work and achievements up to date

You can easily showcase your most recent academic activities, outputs, awards and memberships using the Symplectic Elements system. Here, you can find a step-by-step guide to using Symplectic.

4. Write a good short summary of yourself for your homepage

Your summary should expand on what appears in your job title. It can be helpful if you've more than one role at Imperial or elsewhere.

5. Create subheadings on the page

Very easy to do and easier for readers to follow. Popular subheadings include your background, interests outside your main speciality and any extra-curricular activities at Imperial or outside.

6.  First person or third person

It's up to you but be consistent and consider your audience. For example if widening participation and outreach is important to you, a first person style of writing can be a little more personal. Others may prefer a more objective, third person approach to writing about themselves.

Good examples

• First person - Dr Bradley Ladewig
• Third person - Professor Molly Stevens
  

7. Use the Research page to tell us about your research

It’s a chance to summarise key themes or highlight opportunities for collaboration.

8.  Use the extra page

Use it to hold links to publicly accessible resources. Highlight opportunities for collaboration.

9. Choose your favourite publications

Within Symplectic you can select key, important publications to pull through to feature on your homepage

10.  Showcase your media

Links to your videos, your blog and social media accounts can be added to your profile.

Read a more in-depth guide to Make an impact with a great PWP.

Are your PWP pages accessible?

Accessibility is the right thing to do, not just from the perspective of considering all users, but also in terms of the law. As a public sector body, the College is legally obliged to meet accessibility requirements(opens in a new tab).

At Imperial, our main websites are designed and built with accessibility as one of the most important elements. But as content editors, you have a role to play in how you create and add content to your Professional Web Pages (PWP). 

Accessibility guidance

• There is a useful accessibility guide which highlights the main dos and don'ts around accessible content.
• We also have an excellent on demand accessibility training module which explains accessibility and how to make your digital content accessible
• There is also our Accessible content guidance pages which cover some the main aspects of accessible content like images, headings, links and documents.