Purpose
To align MarComm’s resources with institutional priorities while ensuring work is strategic, impactful and responsibly executed in partnership with campus units.
STEP 1: Annual Commitments (Automatic Priority)
These projects are completed first and not subject to scoring. They:
- Support the chancellor’s office
- Serve the entire university
- Are required annually
- Protect institutional brand and reputation
These projects define our baseline capacity each year.
STEP 2: Weighted Scoring Model
All other projects are evaluated across the following six dimensions:
| Dimension | Weight |
| Institutional Goal Alignment | 30% |
| Scope of Impact | 15% |
| Unit Type Priority | 15% |
| Project Type (Scope, Impact & Required Expertise) | 15% |
| Strategic Value | 15% |
| Partnership Quality | 10% |
Institutional Goal Alignment (30%)
| Goal | Score |
| Enrollment & Student Success | 4 |
| Reputation & Media Relations | 4 |
| Fundraising | 3 |
| Research | 3 |
| Community Engagement | 2 |
| Operational/Administrative | 1 |
Note: Enrollment work that highlights research remains categorized as enrollment when the primary objective is student growth.
Scope of Impact (15%)
| Scope | Score |
| Entire University | 3 |
| Multiple Units | 2 |
| Single Unit | 1 |
This ensures that limited resources are deployed in a manner that maximizes impact.
Unit Type Priority (15%)
| Unit Type | Score |
| Admissions Units (Undergraduate Admissions, Graduate School, CIE) | 3 |
| College- and School-level Requests | 2 |
| Program-level Requests | 1 |
| Administrative/Support Units | 1 |
Note: This reflects enrollment and revenue impact, not intrinsic importance.
Scope, Impact & Required Expertise (15%)
| Project Type | Score |
| High-impact initiative requiring specialized design, digital, strategy or multimedia expertise (e.g., advertising campaign management, full asset suite redesign, video production) | 3 |
| Moderate complexity requiring professional expertise (e.g., web page build, paid social campaign, traditional ad buying) | 2 |
| Low complexity or template-based updates (e.g., text edits on web page, single flyer creation or update, marketing email (Emma) build) | 1 |
This ensures that high-skill, high-impact work is prioritized over work that can be handled through templates or decentralized resources.
Strategic Leverage (15%)
| Strategic Value | Score |
| Creates reusable assets, strengthens brand platform, improves search/AI visibility or supports multiple initiatives | 2 |
| Primarily one-time/tactical | 1 |
This also ensures that limited resources are deployed in a manner that maximizes impact.
Adherence to Best Practices (10%)
| Consistency in Following Best Practices | Score |
| Requesting unit consistently demonstrates an ability to fulfill project commitments on schedule. | 2 |
| Unit sometimes fulfill project commitments on schedule. | 1 |
| Unit has repeatedly failed to fulfill project commitments on schedule. | 0 |
This rewards strong partnership and shared accountability.
Note: Project commitments include such things as completing and updating creative briefs, using UTMs on URLs to track advertising impact, and following up on leads to convert them to applicants.
How Decisions Are Made
- Annual commitments will be scheduled first.
- Remaining projects will be scored using the model.
- Highest-scoring projects will be scheduled within available capacity.
- Requesters with lower-scoring projects will be:
- Directed to templates/toolkits as appropriate
- Have the option to work with a freelancer or agency
- For design projects specifically, units also may be referred to Print & Copy, which has some design capacity available.
- Be able to defer their project until MarComm has capacity. We will create a waiting list for this.