Below are a list of terms that are frequently used by the Web Production team:

CMS: Stands for Content Management System. 2U uses a CMS called WordPress.

WordPress: 2U’s content management system. All edits to websites are done in WordPress. Each program has a sandbox as well as a production (live) site.

Block: A component with specific functionalities that allows users to easily add content to a page.

Examples: Section, Card, Text Media, Heading, Column, Table etc.

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Fluid Width Pages: Fluid width pages span fully from left to right without any margins. Most homepages and OLPs are fluid width pages.

OLP: Stands for Organic Landing Page. A landing page on any website (program sites, minisites, or 2u.com) that’s purpose is to rank for a targeted keyword.

Full Width Pages: Full width pages fully span left and right but do have left and right margins.

Sidebar Pages: These pages are similar to full width pages with the only differentiation being a sidebar navigation widget taking up a portion of the page’s width. Most interior pages are sidebar pages.

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Optimizely: Our conversion rate optimization testing platform. Optimizely splits traffic between a control (the current version of a webpage) and variations, measuring the difference in conversion that occurs by changing elements on our websites.

Whitelabel: Used by designers and web producers to add in assets specific to each program (color theme, logos, fonts, etc.) Harmony pulls in a program’s unique assets from Whitelabel, which determines the ‘look’ of the site.

Bodega: Custom CMS used to build our paid landing pages (PLP). Tickets and requests are to come from CRO.

Taxi: This is a custom software we use to build the forms that live on our sites.

AWS: Stands for Amazon Web Services. This is Amazon’s cloud software services which we run most of our technology on at 2U. There are a lot of products that full under the umbrella of AWS, such as Red Shfit, EC2, RDS, SES, S3, etc.

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Internal Link: Linking to another page within the same website. Internal links should open up in the same window unless otherwise specified. All internal links should be relative URLs.

External Link: Linking to an external page outside of the website. When linking to an external webpage, links should open up a new window or tab. All external links should be absolute URLs.

Absolute URL: The absolute URL is the entire URL that shows up on the browser’s web address bar.

Example: https://www.ed.gov/

Relative URL: The relative URL is used when linking internally on a website. It does not include the entire URL, only the relative path.

Example: /admissions/events/

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Sandbox / Staging: A site to preview how edits look like before making the change on the production (live) site. There are multiple sandboxes for each program site, but we generally use sb02. Sandbox URLs use the program’s acronym followed by mktgorg-main-sb02-qa.2u.com.

Example: https://smu-mds-mktgorg-main-sb02-qa.2u.com/

Production Site / Live Site: The site which a user will see/visit to apply or gather information about a program.

Example: https://datascience.smu.edu/

Uncache URL: After making changes to a live site, you can immediately see changes using the cache URL. Cache URLs use the program’s acronym followed by mktg.2u.com.

Example: http://smu-mds.mktg.2u.com

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CRO: Stands for Conversion Rate Optimization. Marketing strategy team that aims to improve the percentage of visitors who complete a lead form (and ultimately, the number of qualified students who enroll in our programs) through the proposal and testing of website changes.

SEO: Stands for Search Engine Optimization. The goal of this team is to increase search engine rankings, increase visibility, traffic, and applicants to our programs.

Special Projects: The Special Projects team mainly deals with minisites, potential site acquisition that lies outside the scope of the general marketing team, and other content/technical projects.

QA: Stands for Quality Assurance. Quality assurance identifies errors and issues in products and services before hitting production. The extent to what is asked from the QA team often depends on what is being released (initial deployment vs. new version) or standard maintenance prodcedure.

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Above the fold: Top portion of the webpage that is visible without scrolling down when the page first loads.

Breakpoint: Specific screen size widths at which your site’s content will change to provide the user with the best possible layout to consume the information.

Freeze: When a site is “frozen”, no edits can be made to the site.

Front end (HTML, CSS): the part of a website that a user sees and interacts with. HTML provides the structure and content while CSS provides styling and decoration.

Offering: Within existing partners, offerings are new degrees which do not qualify as a full DPG. They should have the following general characteristics:

Minisite: A prospect generation website that is not directly branded with our program partners. They generally focus on verticals rather than specific programs.

Program Vertical: Niches or degrees concentrated within one segment of the market. These are more specific than verticals.

Example: Under healthcare (vertical), we include nursing, public health, and health administration (program verticals) degrees.

Responsive Design: Designing for all browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.) and screen sizes (mobile, tablet, desktop, etc.) in mind.

Vertical: A vertical is any field of study in which 2U operates programs. When interfacing with school partners, we refer to verticals as “academic disciplines.”

Example: The business vertical includes degrees in business, accounting, and business analytics.

Web Accessibility: Designing for all users in mind, including users with disabilities (blindness, deafness, screenreaders, etc.)

Web Leads: A prospect that was generated through the organic lead form.