Action Plan for Communication

Guidelines for UiA's communication

The most important guidelines for communication work at the University are derived from UiA’s strategy. UiA’s communication must also take into consideration other documents, such as:

• The Universities and Colleges Act
• The annual letter of allotment from the Ministry of Education and Research
• The Central Government Communication Policy
• Language policy guidelines for the University of Agder
• Adopted action plans

Principles

UiA follows the principles of the Central Government Communication Policy:

• Openness – open, clear and accessible
• Participation – involvement of those affected
• Reaching all – information to everyone concerned
• Active – inform about rights, obligations and opportunities in due time
• Coherency principle – coherent and coordinated communication
• The term communication in this plan is defined as the mutual transmission of information between two or more parties.

Who is responsible?

Good communication is the responsibility of all staff throughout UiA. Although managers at all levels carry a special responsibility for the daily communication, internal and external. Communication activities must be viewed on the same level as other types of tools to achieve the agreed goals and performance requirements.

In accordance with the line management principle in the Central Government Communication Policy, communication responsibility accompanies case responsibility. Each manager is therefore responsible for the communication within their area of responsibility and must assign resources for this purpose.

Rector has the overall responsibility for the communication activities at UiA. The director of communication is responsible for the development and implementation of UiA’s action plan for communication. All academic staff are responsible for knowledge sharing and dissemination from their field of expertise.

See the separate section on the overall division of responsibility between UiA’s Division of Communication and each faculty and department.

Crisis communication

The plan for crisis communication is part of the University’s overall contingency plan and not part of this action plan.

Our main channels of communication

UiA.no is the University’s main channel for internal and external communication. Innaskjærs is the site for employees at uia.no and communication at institutional level, while internal communication at the faculties, departments and smaller groups and units mainly takes place on Teams.

UiA also uses other channels where suitable:

• Social media to reach target audiences with our message
• Active use of external channels
• Pitch stories and offer academic expertise to the news media

Choice of a channel always depends on how our communication best reaches the target audience.

Target audience

Many people are affected by UiA’s activities and are therefore important target audiences for UiA’s communication. Some central ones are:

• Students – prospective, current and former (alumni)
• Staff – current and prospective
• Partners – current and prospective
• Academic environments and employees at peer institutions
• Decision-makers in the labour-market, society, culture and politics
• The news media and academic publications
• The public

Language

UiA’s communication will be in accordance with the University’s current language policy guidelines.

Communication work must follow the requirements of the Language Act regarding the use of both language variants, 'bokmål' and 'nynorsk'. At least 25 per cent of UiA’s external written communication should be in the underrepresented language variant.

International target audiences, both internal and external, should be able to access information in English, in accordance with the language policy at UiA.

Visual identity

UiA’s brand book is a tool to ensure that communication by the University is viewed as professional and unified. It defines how UiA uses its logo, colours, typeface, pictures and other graphic elements in all its communication, including external UiA web pages and similar. It also defines how we use visual tools to profile UiA as an inclusive and diverse university.