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Institutional Web Management
Workshop 2004:
Transforming The Organisation
Optional Introduction
To The Web Community
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
Email
[email protected]
URL
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
UKOLN is supported by:
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Contents
11:00
•
•
•
•
•
About This Session
The Community
The Challenges
The Support Infrastructure
Conclusions
11:30
• What Can JISC Offer?
Louisa Dale,
JISC
12:00
• Open session
All
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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Brian Kelly,
UKOLN
www.ukoln.ac.uk
About
About This Session
Background:
• This is 8th annual Web Management Workshop
• Previous workshops have helped develop Web
management community by providing opportunity
for face-to-face meetings, discussions, etc
But:
• Became clear last year that not all delegates were
active on main mailing lists
• Participants may be unaware of main issues,
organisations, acronyms, personalities, etc.
This optional session aims to provide:
• An overview of the key issues we face
• An introduction to significant groups & people who can
help
• An opportunity for you to raise any questions www.ukoln.ac.uk
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About
Contributors To Session
Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
• Funded by JISC (and MLA) to support the HE/FE
(and cultural heritage) sectors on Web issues
• Based at UKOLN, University of Bath
Louisa Dale, JISC
• Partnerships Manager at JISC (Joint Information
Systems Committee)
• Supports JISC's outreach activities
Yourselves
• Feel free to ask questions, raise issues, etc
• Will be an open session at end
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
About
5
The Community
What is "the Web Management community"?
• Initially this was restricted to the Higher Education
(HE) sector. However since the FE funding
bodies agreed to co-fund JISC, JISC services now
support the HE and FE community
• The term tends to refer to those involved in
developing, managing and supporting institutional
Web-based services such as:
 Information: for external and internal users
 E-learning: not initial focus but now of growing
importance
 E-research: a new area, including e-science &
GRID work)
 Electronic communications: another new(ish)
area
A centre of expertise
in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
About
Who Are We?
The Web management community embraces a number
of groups who are involved in a range of activities
including:
• Web developers, Web system administrators, etc.
• Web authors & content providers
• Web designers, user interface specialists, …
• Information architects
• Trainers and support staff
• Learning technologists
• Team leaders
• Senior managers, budget holders & policy makers
who provide services for our users
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Challenges
Challenges
What challenges do you think you will face in
your role as a member of a Web team?
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Challenges
Challenges You Will Face
Not enough money
Not enough staff
Technical skills
Managing
resources
CMS, Blogs, Wikis
Not enough time
Resources
XML, HTML, CSS
Technologies
Skills
Human skills
Strategic Issues
Users
Do we have a strategy?
What do they want?
How do we implement
the strategy?
What do they find difficult?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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Challenges
Resourcing Challenges
We are:
• Part of large, well-resourced teams which
implement information strategies agreed by the
University and supported by user community
Somewhere between the two
• Isolated individuals regarded as political pawns
and occasionally sacrificed as part of institutional
power struggles
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Challenges
The Ideal Web Management Team
At IWMW 1999 John Slater (former PVC and head of
Computer Science dept at Kent Univ) described how:
• There was no agreed organisational location for
a Web team
• There was no agreed model for a Web team
• University budget holders will want the money
for themselves
Web teams were advised to:
• Be aware of senior managers' concerns ("do I shut
down history department & give more money to Web
team?"
• Think strategically – and don't think you have
automatic right for more resources
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Challenges
Getting More Resources
• No simple answers
• Need to make case for internal resources (staff,
money, etc.)
• Consider external sources (e.g. JISC calls – see
later)
• Exploiting sharing culture within community
• Student help
• …
Or you could:
• Work more effectively – e.g. implement ideas learnt at IWMW
• Prioritise the areas you cover – and possibly drop some
• Implement a Web / Information strategy to help address priorities
Note you don't have to implement every new idea you learn at IWMW (and
speakersAwho
great
newinformation
idea may
be weak in areas you are
strong in)!
centrehave
of expertise
in digital
management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
Technologies
XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, CMS, Wiki, …
Web team members face challenges in:
• Keeping up-to-date with technologies
• Evaluating technologies
• Deploying appropriate technologies
• …
So:
• What are the key technologies to be aware of?
• How should we keep up-to-date?
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
Key Web Architectural Components
HTML
• Simple document markup language
• XHTML 1.0 is latest version – but:
• Are tools available
 MIME type issue
• Have workflow processes to ensure HTML
compliance (important in XHTML/XML world)
• Avoid propriety extension and display markup
CSS
• Use to define appearance of HTML elements
• Must use – helps with maintenance
XML
• Key meta format for creating other formats
• Designed to enable resources to be reused
• Critical importance (not just a cool new technology)
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
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Browser Challenges
Which browser should you deploy in your institution?
What should your policy be on legacy browsers?
Microsoft Internet Explorer:
• Widely (but not universally) available
• No longer developed (new version for Longhorn)
• Will not be available on non (or old) Windows OSs
Therefore:
• Provided browser is your choice, but IE will not be
available on Mac, Unix, … platforms
• Your pages will therefore need to be usable on
non-IE browsers (and should be in any case)
Legacy browsers:
• Many old browsers are 'broken'
• ofDon't
HTML to
cater for broken browsers!
A centre
expertisebreak
in digital information
management
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
Managing Resources
How should you:
• Manage your HTML resources?
• Manage workflow, publication, etc processes?
Approaches:
• HTML files: Use HTML authoring tool. Difficult to
manage large nos. of resources.
• HTML fragments: Use SSIs to pull in standard
fragments
• HTML and scripting: Use SSIs and conditional
processing
• CMS: As above plus workflow environment
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
CMSs
What CMS should I use?
•
•
•
•
•
No simple answer 
May be expensive (even if free)
Likely to need institutional commitment
Talk to people here
See JISC TechWatch Report by Paul Browning &
Mike Lowndes on Content Management Systems
at
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?
name=techwatch_report_0102>
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
Key Application Areas
Information Provision
• Mature – public Web & Intranet
E-Learning
• Big area from senior manager's perspective
• Expensive (cf UKeU)
• Issues about applications (WebCT, Blackboard
Bodington, Moodle) and standards (IMS, …)
• CETIS is key JISC advisory service
Blogs, Wikis, …
• New areas of potential in HE/FE?
• Distracting toys which can divert from our mission?
• See talk on Wednesday & parallel session today
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Managers
SeniorManagers
ForSenior
TechnologiesFor
WebTechnologies
Web
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Open Source
Technical, strategic or resource issue?
Religious warfare or business decision?
Should you seek to make software you develop (e.g.
through JISC funding):
• Available with an open source licence?
• Available through a commercial licence so that
your institution can gain a return on its
investment?
Open Source issues will be addressed in Sebastian
Rahtz's plenary talk and parallel session.
Sebastian is manager of the JISC-funded OSS Watch
advisory service, which advises the HE and FE
communities
on OSS issues
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Web Technologies For Senior Managers
Maximising Access
We should be seeking to maximising access to our
resources and avoid problems of the past:
• Device dependency: only works on a PC
• Application dependency: only works if you have
the same software as me
• Future proofing: will work on new devices and not
just on IBM mainframe, Unix system, Sinclair
Spectrum, BBC micro, IBM PC, Apple Mac,
PocketPC, Palm PDA, digital TV, WAP, 3G, …
The Web provides answers to application and device
dependencies – but the commercial sector can make
more money by trapping users into their solutions
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The Bigger Picture
There is more to service development than just standards
Standards: concerned with
protocols and file formats
Open standards vs. Proprietary
HTML / XML vs. PDF
CSS / XSL vs. HTML
GIF vs PNG
Applications: software
products used to implement
systems
Apache / IIS
FrontPage / Dreamweaver
Oracle / SQLServer
ColdFusion vs ASP vs PHP
Zope vs Plone vs …
Architectures: models for
implementing systems
Which standards are applicable
NT / Unix
File system / database application
HTML tools / content management
Resources: financial and staff
costs needed to implement
systems
Development vs. Migration costs
Use of in-house expertise
In-house vs. out-sourced
Licensed vs. open source
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Users
What About The Users?
What about our users?
Standards
Architecture
Users
Resources
Applications
Do users want open standards, open source, …? If not,
what strategies do we adopt to get them on our side, as
the
producers?
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of expertise in digital information management
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Users
Our Users
The users:
• What we are about
• But not really represented at IWMW (except that we
are all users)
• Do we forget users when we promote our passions
(standards, open source, favourite applications,
application areas, operating systems, languages,
…)
• There is a need to ensure that our development
activities address:
 User needs analysis (talk at IWMW 2003)
 Usability testing
…
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Skills
Skills
How do members of Web management teams ensure
they develop appropriate skills?
Your Staff Development Unit
• Talk to your institution's staff development unit.
They may have training on 'softer issues
Netskills
• National training unit based at Newcastle
University. See plenary talk on Thursday
IWMW
• Make attendance part of your annual skills update!
Regional
• Join (or establish) regional groups (e.g. .gamut)
UCISA
• UCISA groups run seminars & conferences,
etc.
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Support
Who Can Help Me?
Institutional Web Management can be a challenging:
• Web manager as political pawn in institutional
power struggles!
• Different cultures in different sectors (PR, Library,
IT, …)
• Lack of mature job definitions, titles, promotion
criteria, … due to newness of profession
The good news: you are not alone!
• Mailing lists, etc can be a valuable support
mechanism
• Strong tradition of sharing
• Face-to-face opportunities such as IWMW
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Support
Use JISCMail
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind0407&L=web-support
JISCMail:
• JISC-funded service
which provides
national mailing lists
• The web-support
(techie queries) and
website-info-mgt
(strategic queries) lists
are widely used by
community
• A valuable resource
But do we need a richer
communications infrastructure?
See talk
on ofWednesday
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expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Conclusions
Get Involved!
To conclude (part 1):
• There is a good support infrastructure within the
UK HE/FE community (better than the US!)
• More about JISC shortly
• Don't ask what the community can do for you, but
what you can do for the community!
Opportunities:
• Find a problem, discover others have the same
problem? Research the area and become a guru
(cf. Adrian Tribe & data protection)
• Set up a regional group
• Give talk or facilitate session at IWMW 2005
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Questions
Any questions?
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