On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, Kylie Baxter wrote:

> At 11:02 01/11/2001 +0000, Rick Hobson wrote:>More likely they are maintained by "unpaid volunteers" who in order to
> >gain some satisfaction from the task prefer to do some of their own
> >design.  If institutions want to brand all pages then they should provide
> >the manpower so to do.  Regarding comparisons, it is more likely that
> >individuals are comparing their pages with those in similar departments in
> >other institutions.
>
> Too right! I think this is a factor that is overlooked with regard to
> corporate branding.  All departments like to think that they are individual
> (shades of Monty Python!) and why shouldn't they?  One of the few joys of
> doing a dept website for many people (I get paid to do ours...) is the
> chance to create something that represents the spirit of the
> department.  In fact, you could say that is the joy of web publishing for
> most people.  I reviewed the webpages of other law depts recently for my
> site redesign and the ones I rated highly were not technically perfect or
> beautifully designed.  They were the sites that gave a sense of what the
> dept was really like. Corporate branding, if not very carefully handled,
> could turn departmental pages into bland, anonymous sites.

I couldn't have put this better myself.  If I look at other Chemistry
Department sites, the ones which stand out are not those with a corporate
branding but those which demonstrate that the Department is a vibrant and
friendly place. When I said in a previous post that I found
that heavily branded sites have a dull and stilted feel I was referring
more to the "ambience" and content of the sites rather than the
appearance.

Departmental sites in many ways serve a different purpose to an
institution main site and this need to be recognised.

To save another post (sighs of relief from all :-), Mike McConnell said:-

"Departments should of course be able to control their own content, but
they are not independent entities and I would question whether they should
be able to publish materials without at least some form of centralised
editorial control."

This sounds like a recipe for disaster unless handled very carefully.  I
make small updates virtually every day so to have these vetted would be
unworkable.  If Mike meant that the overall content be vetted - who is to
judge what is relevant to the needs of a particular department?
Departments have a range of "customers" with very varied needs and I
don't believe that anyone would be capable of grasping these for every
department in an institution.

--
Rick
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Dr. Rick Hobson              Tel:  +44-(0)118 931-6375
<[log in to unmask]>       Fax:  +44-(0)118 931-6331
Chemistry Dept.
University of Reading           Blame
RG6 6AD, UK                     Somebody
http://www.chem.rdg.ac.uk       Else
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