Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005: Whose Web Is It Anyway?
Feedback on IWMW 2005: Comments

This page gives a summary of the comments which were given on the evaluation forms. Please note that additional feedback is also available.

Overall Comments

• Well organised again. Congratulations and thank you. I regret not finding out about JISC and UKOLN until 2004.
• Again a very good event. Thank you for organising this. Brian will be a hard act to follow.
• Fab-one of the best. Great venue, good having everything in one place. Good to see "web" from a people angle.
• Excellent. Good to put names to faces.
• Enjoyable and thought provoking.
• Glad to attend.
• Excellent as always. I've been coming for 6 years and its good to have a cross section of the HE Community.
• Would have like a detailed presentation on a CMS project from beginning to end from the public sector in plenary session.
• The parallel sessions I attended were excellent. However with 8 other sessions going on I feel that I will have missed out on similarly useful sessions. Maybe the sessions should be repeated to allow attendance at two at the expense of the panel or discussion sessions.
• Simulating/varied/enjoyable/educational
• Very good selection. Seemed particularly sociable this year
• Once again an excellent event
• The accommodation being close to the venue was nice. A very useful event
• Grand and great. As friendly and sociable as last year and certainly as useful
• Overall I thought the quality was much better this year. Much better organisation and content more relevant
• Would benefit from more focus and more technical discussions. Warwick and UCL good examples of where this worked well.
• A good introduction to the community
• Good balance of talks and workshops and an invaluable chance to network as usual
• Workshops were good - provided a wide spectrum of topics that everyone can relate to
• Good. Gained some useful information.
• Very focused this year.
• Very friendly and well organised. However as a first time attendee felt a bit excluded at first since it seemed to be a bit about the same faces who come each year. A simple hello to new people would be welcome.
• Useful and interesting although I felt the regional discussion groups could have benefited from a pre-appointed chair to focus the discussion. Maybe there were too many plenaries and not enough parallel sessions.
• There were some interesting and varied presentations - mostly. Its good to see what other people are doing. Overall the emphasis on buying implementing a CMS was not particularly valuable because we are in the roll-out phase for our house development.
• Liked the timing - allows travel during worktime which fits better with family commitments. Going to buy a book based on a presenters recommendation.
• Very useful overall, please encourage a mix of technical and content and corporate marketing. We need to keep sharing experiences.
• Well organised and good content - especially the plenaries. Regional and parallel sessions seemed less well planned and less interesting content. Good location of social events.

Top Three Aspects

• 1.Chance to hear what other people are getting up to with respect to CMS.
  2.Opportunity to do role playing in workshop very useful.
  3.Coming away feeling inspired to get things in place.
• Networking (people that is not wires) David Sweeney's trashing of Uni of Manchester in his own great style.
• Parallel sessions. Social - meeting /talking with people with similar issues.
• PRINCE 2 Parallel session/Networking/Discussion group CMS.
• Areas of further investigation e.g. tools. Gaining knowledge of current stage of process that people are at.
• The parallel sessions. Meeting with others to discuss similar scenarios. Stephen Emmotts Talk.
• Social. Informal ideas exchanging. Case studies.
• Parallel session B. Networking and beer. WIFI, good experiment.
• Parallel sessions. Networking /introduction to the community.
• Regional group-meeting faces/names and reaquainting others, makes sense to do reg groups. Contrast of session content gave food for thought.
• Meeting like-minded individuals.
• Social interaction and parallel sessions.
• Networking and project experiences of others.
• Some of the plenary sessions were excellent thought provoking and useful (S.Emmott's in particular). Talking to other colleagues. Being given the opportunity to lead a parallel session.
• Knowing that there are some switched on people at VP level. More people getting the big picture, more chance of getting it supported.
• David Sweeney contribution as an external view. Web statistics presentation by RSS presentation.
• Mixing with colleagues/Plenary talks/Exhibition and poster session - talking to those manning the stand.
• Case studies, strategic and corporate focus, meeting people trying to solve same problems.
• NEDSTAT specifically because marketing told me they were going to trial it and I didn't know the product. Impact session - useful\open feedback.
• Covering CMS's in detail as we are planning for one.
• Insight into common areas of ground. Information to go back and use/discuss. Crystalising some of the challenges ahead.
• Blogging plenary. RSS parallel.
• Shibboleth workshop, longer view talks.
• Jeremy Speller presentation - Day 1 parallel session.
• Promoting technical-marketing working together and focus on your end audiences/users overall

Things Which Could Have Been Improved

• More time allocated for the parallel sessions. Regional discussion groups not good from my pov.
• Not being able to get to all the parallel sessions.
• Pity the discussion groups were regional as didn't mix with as many non-regional people this time.
• More time for questions.
• Disorganised talk/session at the museum.
• Prefer to choose from a range of topics for discussion groups.
• Would have liked to have attended other parallel sessions and had 2 less plenaries. Too many feedback forms.
• Mismatched expectations in on of the parallel sessions. Too much spouting about institutions.
• Regional groups - I wonder if more could be made of this. More co-ordinated approach to providing this would be good.
• Profiles of delegates and speakers could be uploaded in advance to facilitate networking and identifying people with similar interests.
• I do not find the discussion groups and related feedback ever produce anything worthwhile.
• Social event on Day 2 . Would have been nice to have something that kept people together for longer.
• non-WIFI users only found out about facilities on Day Two.
• Exhibition. Vendors session clashed with parallel session. Short early workshop session on technology.
• Don't like people using laptops in plenary session. Noisy and irritating distraction.
• People using laptops to surf the web during key note deliveries. It is very rude.
• Controversial speaker/One workshop too techie focused/ placement of poster session.
• Panel sessions/perhaps slightly shorter plenaries/more on the last day as it seems light.
• Lunch - so easy to get right - but yet they failed everytime.
• Need more technical stuff. Compare and contrast actual CMSs. Look at actual web pages and try to change them in real time.
• Some of the discussion sessions turned into mini presentations and were less interactive than they should have been.
• Need an introduction to the subject.
• Thought much of the CMS debate was going over old ground - bit too much of it.
• Lots of spare time which could be utilised better.
• Discussion groups - bit disorganised. Might be better if chair was appointed first.
• Too much paper in the packs. Doubts on CMS.
• Could have been longer - 2 whole days and 1 half rather than 2 halves and 1 whole. More practical topics.
• The talks sometimes don't seem high brow enough.
• More information could be made available on free software and about the various emerging technologies, some of which were meaningless acronyms.

Additional Comments

• Forum and WIKI to follow up workshop.
• Nice venue, should have been an in-Conference PC lab for delegates without PDAs and laptops.
• Loved "Baby" and the museum presenters. Real sense of history and very knowledgeable chaps-excellent.
• What isn't included in conference payment should be clearly stated.
• 6 evaluation forms is a bit OTT.
• It was good to be located centrally especially having accommodation/bar in the same venue.
• Very enjoyable as in previous years. Thank you.
• People should give their name and institution when asking question during a discussion session and speak into the mic.
• Very much enjoyed it. Glad there was not coach to get!
• Very well done all round, excellent to have accommodation so close to the sessions- big plus point for that.
• worthwhile attending, wish it had more technical content.
• Last day should be more seminars, posters on second day
• Discussion groups a bit unfocused and not as interesting as the rest.
• Job well done. Kudos on the Organising Committee. Really enjoyed myself -looking forward to next year.
• The lecture theatre seats were very uncomfortable. Where were IT facilities for non WIFI users.
• The trip to the museum would have been better with a coach laid on. The dinner needed a brief speech.
• I liked the idea of the wiki to comment on presentations in progress but the facilitator didn't refer to the comments which kind of defeated the object.
• Lightning talks would be a nice addition. Need more national projects to deal with things like CMS portfolios. Modular applications easily tailored to each institution, the institutions are not that different.

Admin, Catering, Etc.

• I have attended many University conferences and the Manchester Conference Centre has the best facilities. Veggie food disappointing.
• Very well administered. Good food etc.
• Admin was fine. Lunch was a bit random.
• Admin was good. Catering was okay.
• Food and service excellent.
• Catering at lunchtime was bizarre. Accommodation not at all nice.
• very good organisation as usual. Evening meal miles better than last year.
• Friendly and efficient.
• Food better than last year.
• Overall very good. Rooms in halls so so. It was nice to have accommodation next to the conference centre.
• Accommodation was wanting. Smelled bad and towels left bits on me.
• Information on how to access email would have been appreciated.
• Admin and catering v good. Room didn't replenish tea and coffee, no towel.
• All great other than the rooms.
• Admin fab, staff lovely, lunch awful although conference dinner was very nice. Nice touch keeping the bar open for so long - thanks for that!.
• Facilities were good.
• Admin was efficient and catering was good.
• Catering was dire, the refurb work was irritating due to the noise but these were outside the remit of the organisers.
• Limited vegetarian option.
• No signage on arrival.
• excellent generally.
• would have been good to arrive on Tuesday evening and have a social event to begin. Catering was good.
• Polite, friendly, efficient helpful.
• Services in Conference Centre were very good. Staff very helpful.
• would have been good to receive a document before the event I.e with a good map and directions.

Parallel Sessions

• I found them the most directly useful part of the workshop and would have liked to attend more of them.
• As a web manager, Stephen's sessions was really good as it was on a management issue.
• Well presented material and good sized groups. I gained a great deal as the group were enthusiastic and interested in that subject.
• Really enjoyed them both - well structured and interactive. Would like to do 3 parallel sessions - so much to choose from.
• Both very good overviews of all topics.
• Both were excellent with intelligent answers to questions.
• Descriptions were misleading. Fun though.
• I wanted to attend two sessions on both days - spoilt for choice.
• The presenters on both the workshops had thought out their sessions and ensured audience participation.
• Well organised and structured sessions introducing to PRINCE 2.
• Very useful discussions and demonstrations which improved understanding.
• I felt that Adrian Tribe's session gave a full interactive perspective on mobile texting. I will be investigating ways of incorporating this at work on my return.
• Both excellent and leading to proposed action.
• Nice to have some clarity on legal issues.
• First one unfortunately had to deal with fairly aggressive questioning on every point which hampered things. More real examples of the technologies would have been useful. Second interesting and provided real action points.
• I'd prefer to meet people from different regions to discuss and find out about their approaches and solutions.
• Very different to what I expected but worthwhile and enjoyable.
• I enjoyed both sessions and found the B2 one especially useful as a guide/view of an approach that Southampton are using to roll out their CMS.
• Fab session. The "men in black" are such a good double act. Very thought provoking, role playing good fun and we got party hats!
• Both great. Structure of B3 particularly good, a blend of presentation, seminar style discussion and demo of system.
• Useful to look at subjects in greater detail.
• Excellent - Interesting and useful subject well presented and discussed.
• Very useful discussions , legal workshop was particularly useful.
• Too short perhaps but good intro to subject.
• Well presented and covered the right ground but I didn't learn anything new.
• Excellent food for thought and engaging speakers but not 100% sure what the practical outcome was.
• 1 1/2 hours seemed quite long. The first facilitator was struggling to fill it.
• I could have got more out of both of them.
• Probably the best part of the event.
• I liked the fact that everyone was encouraged to talk in my session. I know sessions vary quite a bit - are session leaders given guidance on how to run sessions for consistency? More needed as well as I don't like having to choose between them.
• Brief and to the point. Exercises and audience participation sessions were great.
• Good, informative - useful ideas which I can apply to work.
• One was very useful . The other was applicable to something I may have to do though I got the impression that many attendees had misunderstood what it was about.
• You get better discussions in the smaller groups.