On Wed 17 Nov 2010, Sebastian Rahtz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I tend to agree that it was a legitimate investigation,
> just not very well thought through at all.
But his figures are completely meaningless without some indication
of what 'counts' in calculating the cost of 'a university website'.
Staff? What about staff who write content that gets used for both
print publications *and* the website? A CMS would presumably count,
but what about servers & infrastructure? And where does the 'website'
begin and end? Main public-facing pages? Intranets? VLEs? Web apps?
There may well be a legitimate investigation to be made, sure, but
it doesn't look like this was it.
> The underlying story that students are
> not always brilliantly well-served by university web sites is certainly not
> something one can ignore.
But if we look at the main university website here, for example, it's
not at all clear that it was ever intended to serve current students
-- it's a marketing site for _prospective_ students and alumni. This
'study' is not even comparing apples and oranges, it's comparing an
indeterminate number of unidentified fruit with a box of frogs.
--
Janet McKnight
Information Services, Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN / Tel: +44 1865 273213
|