Building your minion infrastructure: training content contributors to help, not hinder

Minions. Many of us think of this word as meaning “subordinate” or Latin for “student-worker who does all the junk work.” A minion can also be defined as a “minor official.” Let’s face it, in higher ed our content contributors are all minions—whether they are student workers/interns that help us gather information or faculty and staff across our campuses that are “minor officials” in each of their own departments.

As Web professionals we have varying levels of editorial control over website content depending on each institution’s structure. Some of us have final approval of all content before it is published for all the world to see while others are merely left to post whatever we are handed. In both cases, and every variation between, we all experience #headdesk moments.
Providing training to our content contributors helps everyone understand how to better write content that will benefit site visitors.