Hi all,

Paul - the workshop looks really interesting, please keep me informed of any plans for running one this year.

Since I started working at the University I have seen several shifts in the way in which content is handled - we have gone almost full circle in terms of content management.

Initially, we used a customised web content management system which we ran training courses on as well as a 'writing for the web' course. The content providers worked within the departments/services and content would go through a simple workflow whereby an 'approver', another often senior member of the same team, would provide a quality check over the information and would make any necessary changes before making the content live. The web expertise of the providers/approvers was varied.  

The central web team was then expanded to include Web Officers. They were embedded in the department/service with the aim to advise on best practice and maintain the consistency of brand, tone, style etc as well as manage the various web projects and content in their areas. 

More recently, we have been working on moving all our web content to a SharePoint content management environment- which has been a steep learning curve - as it has required several custom developments to create a CMS that is fit for web compliance and that is easy to use by a novice user - we are still not quite there yet! 

Migrating content from the legacy CMS to SharePoint has been carried out by the central web team, we started with the more centrally-focussed areas of the site but this also included some sites which used to have department/service-based content providers. Due to the current learning-curve involved in the new CMS we have only trained a few content providers, so we are increasingly updating sites ourselves by request of the department/services - this enables us to put quality checks in place. Although, we have seen some advantages to this, we intend to hand the sites back to departments/service for content updates and to resume a full training schedule for providers and approvers.

We also receive requests for new websites/microsites. As a central web team we (try to) implement a full web site service and this means understanding the client and user needs from an early stage. The  website audiences vary which means sometimes we have to vary the tone set out in the style guide. By being involved in the websites from an early stage were able to advise on the best ways of developing web content to achieve the client and user goals. We can also help the clients write their content ensuring that it is optimised for search engines. 

We are currently developing a web strategy based around the University's Corporate Plan which will help prioritise our work and determine where the websites/microsites that we are creating fit into the bigger picture, if at all. It is important that as a central function that we have some form of governance of the website. This may mean that on some occasions we have to advise clients that the content is not appropriate for example we would advise a client requesting a website that contained internally-focused information that the content would be more appropriate on the intranet.

As well as the written content, we have been increasing our video and podcast content. Due to the skills involved, this is managed by the central team which includes two multimedia managers. Some of the content is created by request, while other content is proactively sourced by the central team to complement other website content or as part of the University Corporate Plan. Again the tone of video and audio content can vary according to the intended audience. We have discussed the possibility of training content providers on how to create podcast/audio material for the website but have yet to take it any further.

 
Thanks,

Jon

Kind Regards,

Jon Chowdhury
Coventry University
Online Communications Manager
(t) +44 (0)2476 88 7727
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(w) http://www.coventry.ac.uk