Our Web has to be everything to everyone because everyone expects everything all the time.

• founded in 1876 as University College, Bristol
• 45 academic departments and 15 research centres arranged in 6 faculties, plus a large number of admin units
• one of the most popular universities in the UK; in 2005 there were 33,760 home/EU applications for 3,105 places
• 10,900 undergrads, 3,400 taught and 1,800 research postgrads
• 5,300 staff
• first HE institution in England to admit women on an equal basis to men

• server info; main central server and 50-odd dept servers scattered around the institution
• around 500 official UoB websites
• around 1 million page requests per week on central server
• around 130,000 page requests per week on the University homepage
• several hundred web maintainers (and counting) of varying levels of 'web' expertise scattered around all departments across the institution
• Central web support
  • Information Services - technical, training and development. 2 trainers/consultants, 2 web system administrator and developers
  • Public Relations Office - corporate web content and design, template guidelines, web advice. 2 part-time web publications officers, 1 web manager

• anarchy ruled
• a hotch-potch of sites, inconsistent in presentation and navigation
• poorly structured content
• didn't have a strong organisational identity
• content of variable quality
• unnecessary duplication of information
• varying levels of HTML skills and...
• over-reliance on 'favourite' web authoring tools (Frontpage, Dreamweaver, Word) resulted in...
• ...non-conformity to web and accessibility standards
• publishing bottleneck - reign of the departmental web master

In groups of 4/5 compare and contrast the following web publishing models:

1) Centralised autonomous

... few publishers, few or no restrictions on the content and/or its presentation.

2) Centralised restricted/compliant

... few Web publishers, well-defined publishing guidelines and templates.

3) Decentralised autonomous

... many publishers (potentially anyone in the organisation), few or no restrictions on the content and/or its presentation.

4) Decentralised restricted/compliant

... many publishers (potentially anyone in the organisation), well-defined publishing guidelines and templates.

Ref: Hinton S., From home page to home site: effective Web resource discovery at the ANU, 1998, http://www.ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www7/1828/com1828.htm

• relies on an enthusiastic individual or small group of publishers
• no concerted Web publishing strategy
• tends to be inward looking and ignore user needs
• pre-historic model, still commonly found in some university departments

• tends to result in a highly structured website
• strongly reinforces the organisation's identity
• demonstrates a concerted effort to integrate the website in the organisation's overall communication and marketing strategies
• consistent quality of content and look and feel throughout the site
• quite common in the commercial sector

• highly fragmentary web presence
• inconsistent look and feel
• reliance on internal 'web expert'
• no central co-ordination of publishers mean that...
• ...wheels are being re-invented all the time
• variable quality depending on web skills, interest and resource
• inward-looking sub-sites with little or no connection to the wider organisation
• difficult for users to find information

• conformity to a standard 'corporate' style, with some scope for 'personalising'
• central co-ordination of standards, guidelines and structure
• provision of software and human solutions supporting the use of a corporate style
• makes more effective use of central web services (eg staff/student directory...)
• ...avoiding the re-inventing the wheel syndrome
• rationalised structure, so easier for users to find information

• compliance with web and accessibility standards
• a new design and greater consistency of look-and-feel
• improved structure and navigation
• improved quality of content - prelaunch audits
• making web publishing easier for non-HTML savvy authors
• devolve content creation/maintenance to content owners
• make it easier for users to find what they want
• the web is our primary form of communication - so let's treat it as such!

Which model fits the above? Decentralised restricted/compliant

Decentralised restricted/compliant:

... many publishers (potentially anyone in the organisation), well-defined publishing guidelines and templates.

1) What are the obstacles to implementing this model?

2) What are the ways of overcoming these obstacles?

• sheer size of UoB - at least 500 official websites and hundreds of web publishers
• not enough central support
• culturally a devolved institution ..... will always be
• ... seems to be working for us - may not necessarily work in your own institutions

• general acceptance of institutional standards and guidelines
• lack of central resources
• finding and providing the tools to simplify the Web publishing process
• overcoming organisational sub-cultures
• people's attitudes, especially senior management

• corporate Web Working Group formed to oversee the overhaul of the corporate web
• customisable and easy-to-use University web templates produced and made available to departments
• initially, 'soft' approach to pushing the templates
• establishing policies, guidelines and best practice
• getting the right tools (for us) - Zope (Content Management Framework) + 'edit-on Pro'
• providing support and training (central web teams, mailing list, courses, etc)
• active promotion of the templates and its benefits (better compliance with accessibility legislation, easier to maintain websites)

Successes:

• better conformity with web and accessibility standards
• radical overhaul of corporate web
• rate of adoption of web template far higher than anticipated ... 'if you build it, they will come!'
• through-the-browser editing - maintain your site from anywhere with an internet connection!
• easier for web publishers to maintain content
• removing technical barriers encourages web publishers to focus more on content

Successes (cont):

• formulation of the Web Accessibility Group and acceptance at the highest level of the web accessibility strategy
• thorough and detailed 'pre-launch' audits for websites
• more senior management realising that the web is central to our mission
• the Web no longer the preserve of the techie

Problems:

• rogue departments butchering the templates
• quality of departmental content variable
• some departments still refusing to tow the 'corporate line'
• the need to continuously raise awareness of web standards and accessibility
• no content workflow - live pages can be edited directly
• limitations within 'edit-on Pro' can still result in invalid XHTML
• investing in the web still not seen as a priority by some people - still seen as a secondary medium ... even in 2005!

Demo

• content management system (Plone/Zope solution) - improved QA, workflow, rollback, email notification, 'polished design'
• more accessibility testing using different devices and people with different access requirements
• the 'join' between the CMS and the new University Portal
• better integration with central systems (eg contact directory, etc)
• improving the way we present and market ourselves - the medium is not the message! The techies have reigned for too long!

Thank you