It's an interesting question. I've just been part of a team reviewing both my university's web provision and some associated process issues. The report was delivered to senior managmeent for consideration so obviously I can't go through all of the ins and outs here, as I don't know who else in the institution has seen our recommendations.

I don't think many of the issues in Hull were really any different from many in the sector.

In Hull currently, things fall into three units:

1. Marketing (content and visual design)
2. eServices Integration (CMS development, plus portal for internal)
3. Computing Service to manage infrastructure.

Because the CMS is there, there are also a small number of people in deprtments managing their own content through the CMS in addition to centrally supported and authored stuff.

The key impressions I got from the review we undertook were that there was certainly some under-resourcing and a lack of instituional focus or understanding of the strategic importance of electronic communications, of which the web is a major part. 

Currently, the institutional web site team here is functioning as a wing of marketing. I think that, to a certain extent, that always has to be true as the web is now becoming one of the most powerful marketing tools an institution can muster. There were problems, even though all of the people concerned in all units were working hard to do what they thought was best in the circumstances.

However, I think that there is a wider problem (and this applies even outside academe). Web teams in general need to be multi-skilled, with a wide mix of both visual design, web specialism (to cover things like compliance, accessibility and usability testing) and development and admin abilities to allow things to come toghether. I have heard too many horror stories (in general) to think otherwise. Designing for the web is unfortuntely different to designing for other media. There are more constraints and minefields to negotiate than, say print, although you do get the positive of having interactivity and the ability to personalise dynamically.

In general, I think institutions, for whatever reason, separate out these skills because they tend to be located in far-flung units. Many marketing depts just don't have the technical skills to be able to develop applications or maintain servers. After all, this is supposedly what an IT or computer service is for, right?  The problem is that all this horizontal structure can introduce real problems in communication, however good a working relationship is. In addition of course, I don't believe an intranet or portal complicates matters further. It is simply another arm of the institution's presence; the only difference is the target user group, which will provide you with different use cases in your requirements analyis. A web team needs to be able to call on all of those skills very quickly and fluidly to produce an optimal system

There are no easy solutions but my own *personal* way of thinking is that the cross-disciplinary method is the best way. If that means forming a team across organisational units then perhaps this is the way to go, and you have to hammer out the managmeent consequences of that as you go.


-----Original Message-----
From:	[log in to unmask] on behalf of Gareth McAleese
Sent:	Mon 7/11/2005 3:40 PM
To:	[log in to unmask]
Cc:	
Subject:	Institutional Web Teams
Hi Folks,

I spoke to a few of you during the Institutional Web Managers Workshop
last week in Manchester on the topic of resourcing a webteam and its
focus and I have a few questions for the wider community.  As always the
workshop was a very interesting and useful few days.

I am keen to get a feeling of the level of resource devoted to
institutional web teams and also just as importantly where they are
situated and their focus.  We are looking to consolidate and strengthen
our approach and I'm interested to get a feeling what other institutions
are doing before putting proposals forward here.  Our team is based in
our Public Affairs department and although focused outwards from a
marketing communications perspective, has now a remit to look at the
internal aspects of this portfolio as well.  It is comprised of four
people, myself as technical manager, a business manager, and two
developers.  One area we are immediately looking to strength is in a web
editor/production role.

I have noticed a shift in the last year or two for institutional web
teams to be situation or be lead from the marketing communications area.

So, a few questions.

1) how many people make up the corporate webteam?

2) what is their role and focus?  (ie internal/external etc)

3) what department/unit are they based in?

4) what other groups (other than the corporate webteam) have
responsibility for developing web services?

I'll summarise a response of comments and structures people are happy to
make public.

Thanks,
Gareth

--
Gareth McAleese
Web and New Media Manager
Public Affairs
University of Ulster

[log in to unmask]
www.ulster.ac.uk






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