Brian,
Many thanks for asking this question - I too have a seminar to give on this
subject! Earlier this week I put together some ideas on this topic, but have
been lucky enough to return to my email today and discover the valuable
contributions you've had.
I've no doubt you recall your UKOLN workshop "Running an Institutional Web
Service" (July 1997) at the end of which I pointed out that the workshop
hadn't actually addressed "Running an Instituional Web Service", instead
covering technical details of caching, page design, HTML and networking. I
shall never forget joining the parallel group session entitled "Trials of
being a Web Editor", specially convened for those of us who saw the problems
as intitutional rather than technical. Unfortunately most of our discussion
was overwhelmed by an institutional pneumatic drill! However, it was noted
that few sites had full time Web Editors, and few web Editors had the full
support of their top management. As a result, a need was identified for
National Web Awareness sessions for Institution senior management, at the
CVCP level. Has this been furthered?
At the same workshop Colin Work presented a tremendous paper on "Information
Flow" (the only paper which actually addressed the institutional problems),
and I see that Colin has quite rightly returned to this fundamental theme in
this discussion. We should be talking about Information delivery rather than
the just the Web.
The Web is now accepted (at least by us) as the best "tool" for delivering
information of all kinds. But the institutional problems are not technical,
they are related to lack of awareness and resources, highlighted well by
Sheila Thomas in the first reply you received.
I feel that the problems Web managers *still* appear to face are broadly
associated with:
1. Institutional Awareness.
2. Institution Information Strategy. Which should address not only the needs
of the institution's information users (in the broad sense) and creators,
but also the mechanisms of effective and efficient delivery. (Corollary of
1.)
3. Resources. Web Managers need Web Teams! (Corollary of 2.)
A couple of major considerations, which should be part of a Strategy, must
be:
4. Institutional Control. Should authoring be centralised for efficiency, or
distributed for greater awareness and "information ownership", or somewhere
in between? (Discussed in detail by Colin at UKOLN workshop)
5. Standards adoption. To future-proof the institution's information and
make it accessible to all.
One of the main problems in raising awareness at the present time is that,
as someone else has already mentioned, the Web can end up at the bottom of
the list of priorities. In the current climate of pressure and
"productivity" this will take time to remedy in academic institutions. One
of the main corollaries of this, as mentioned above, is the lack of
allocation of resources. We should be talking about Teams of skilled
professionals, not part-time "Managers".
My complementary question is: "What are the solutions to these problems?"
Regards,
Rob.
Dr Robert C. Symberlist,
Network Multimedia Consultant,
Library & Information Services,
University of Wales Swansea,
Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP.
Tel: 01792 295619
Fax: 01792 295851
http://www.swan.ac.uk/lis
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Kelly [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 10:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: What are the main problems facing Web managers?
I've been asked to give a seminar which will address web management
issues. I'd be interested in the views of web managers on
"What are the main problems facing Web managers?". Can we come up with a
list of the top 10 challenges facing web managers.
Thanks
Brian Kelly
------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, England, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Homepage: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly.html
Phone: 01225 323943 FAX: 01225 826838
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