With so much new information and jargon within the industry, it is important to understand some of the keywords that will be constantly used by the Comms & Design team or that you will find in our articles.
A quick note about our name
The Comms & Design teams were formerly part of a division called Communication, Marketing & Events (CME). Some materials on this site and elsewhere may still refer to CME.
If the materials are about Comms-related or Design-related subjects, you can generally replace "CME" with "Comms and Design" as much of the information will still be relevant.
If the materials are primarily about Events-related subjects, please defer to the information provided by the Events team in their Event Planning Framework. They can be contacted at events@union.unimelb.edu.au.
If a piece of information about event planning, venue booking, risk assessments, etc. on this site conflicts with information provided to you elsewhere by the Events team, the information provided by the Events team prevails.
For any information about marketing, promotion, social media, the UMSU website, design, logos, branding, etc., these Help Docs are still current and correct.
Backline: A backline usually refers to the non-instrumental sound-system equipment, like amps and speaker cabinets, that you need to play a gig. In many cases, depending on the gig and venue, it can also include instruments like drums (often minus the breakables) and keyboards
Backstage: All areas related to, but not on, the stage, including dressing rooms, technical areas and such.
CCB: Stands for Crowd Control Barriers
Child page - Website terminology - A child page is a page that “lives” in a hierarchy underneath another page (the parent). For example, the 'Contact' page is the child page of the 'About UMSU' parent page (see below).
Event: is an UMSU-organised engagement or social occasion open to University of Melbourne students and/or members of the University and wider communities.
Event Producer: is the owner of the event, which in the case of UMSU will generally refer to either the student representative department or staff divisional area that has initiated the event and governs expenditure and budget. Is responsible for managing and overseeing the actual event, including set up, briefing of event teams and, if applicable, venue staff and for being a key point of contact during the event.
Event Project Manager: is a delegated staff member from the Events Department, who is responsible for working with the Event Producer to support the delivery of a compliant event within defined objectives, budget and timeline. This includes contracting of third parties eg performers, guest speakers, security, event builds, and other logistic requirements.
Event Staff: includes event Volunteers, casuals, and in some cases contractors, who are onsite to assist with the event delivery.
High Risk Event: is any event which, because of its nature and/or included elements, may pose a higher than usual risk to UMSU and/or the University and therefore may require additional oversight and management to ensure compliance obligations are met. Some examples of higher-risk events include events with alcohol, after-hours events, events where food is prepared or cooked on-site, events requiring on-site specific equipment or infrastructure and events where more than 100 people are expected to attend.
Memberships - Memberships are particular roles that people can have linked to their accounts. For example, Josh Davis has the role of 'Survey Admin', which means he can access his Organisation's surveys, look at the responses from people who have submitted forms and create new forms.
Newslist - Website - Newslist is a widget that you need to add to a page that you want news posts to collate on. See "Widget" below for more info.
News - Website - News posts can be used to post blog posts, news articles on your page. You need to set up the "newslist" widget (see above) on your webpage to be able to post news items there. You can also post news to the UMSU All News area.
Organisation Groups - Website = These are the groups within UMSU — Departments, Clubs, Societies etc. For example, Advocacy is an organisation group and staff are added to this organisation. As an organisation member, you can access the permissions available to that organisation. For example, the Advocacy organisation can edit their webpages, access their own surveys, post their own news items, add events for their area etc.
Stage Plot: is a graphic representation that illustrates a band or performers setup for when they perform live which indicates their placement on stage, what gear they use, and other helpful information.
Target Audience: Is the demographic most likely to attend your event. These are students of different ages, experience and cultural backgrounds. Many of them are away from home and wanting to make new friends.
Volunteering: is time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain.
Widget - A widget is a plug-in that allows you have different functions in the website. For example, you may want to have a news area just for your organisation. You'll need to add the "Newslist" widget to the page you want to have the news items collate on.
WYSIWYG - WYSIWYG (pronounced "wiz-ee-wig") editor or program is one that allows a developer to see what the end result will look like while the interface or document is being created. WYSIWYG is an acronym for "what you see is what you get". Sometimes when you first log onto a page it might go to the code. You need to check the WYSIWYG box to see the content in a way that is easier to edit (see below).
Not what you're looking for? Or have a subject you would like to know more about? Suggestions welcome!