Report on the "Running An Institutional Web Service" Workshop

Excellent; good opportunity to update knowledge and meet other - [FORM 61]
A much needed workshop. Very useful to hear from speakers and finding out about other sites from discussion groups. Same again next year please! - [FORM 52]
The workshop was very informative and organised in an excellent way - [FORM 36]
Extremely useful and timely - [FORM 25]
The pre-course organisation and notes were very good - [FORM 18]

Judging by the comments received the 92 participants found the workshop on "Running An Institutional Web Service" to be a useful and informative event. A detailed summary of the evaluation forms is given below.

Note that numerical scores range from 1 (poor) through 3 (good) to 5 (excellent). The numerical scores are based on 62 forms that were completed at the final session and the one form that was returned in the post.

Overall Rating For Workshop

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the workshop content was 3.6, with 8 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 23 people giving 4, 30 people giving 3, 2 people giving 2. Nobody rated the workshop content poor.

The overall rating for the workshop organisation was 3.5, with 9 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 22 people giving 4, 25 people giving 3, 6 people giving 2 and 1 person rated the workshop organisation poor.

The following responses were received:

There were too many participants on the workshop
Agree - 11/63 (17%) Disagree - 33/63 (52%)
The range of backgrounds and expertise amongst the participants was useful
Agree - 45/63 (71%) Disagree - 0/63 (0%)
I would have preferred more presentations
Agree - 11/63 (17%) Disagree - 45/63 (71%)
I would have preferred more discussion groups
Agree - 45/63 (71%) Disagree - 17/63 (27%)
The length of the workshop was
Too short - 29/63 (46%) Just about right - 30/63 (48%) Too long - 0/63 (0%)

Subjective Analysis

Most of the general comments on the workshop were very positive, as can be seen from the quotes included at the beginning of this report.

Ratings For Individual Sessions

Introduction

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Introduction session was 3.5, with 4 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 21 people giving a rating of 4, 36 people giving a rating of 3, 1 people giving a rating of 2. Nobody rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Design

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Design session was 3.7, with 8 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 28 people giving a rating of 4, 24 people giving a rating of 3, 2 people giving a rating of 2. Nobody rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Information Flow

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Information Flow session was 3.7, with 10 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 21 people giving a rating of 4, 29 people giving a rating of 3, 2 people giving a rating of 2. Nobody rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Networking For Webmasters

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Networking For Webmasters session was 2.6, with 4 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 6 people giving a rating of 4, 21 people giving a rating of 3 (Good), 20 people giving a rating of 2. Eleven people rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Database Integration

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Database Integration session was 3.0, with 1 person giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 15 people giving a rating of 4, 31 people giving a rating of 3, 10 people giving a rating of 2. 5 people rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Security Issues

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Security Issues session was 3.4, with 7 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 22 people giving a rating of 4, 23 people giving a rating of 3, 10 people giving a rating of 2. Nobody rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Caching Issues

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Caching Issues session was 2.9, with 0 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 4 people giving a rating of 4, 28 people giving a rating of 3, 13 people giving a rating of 2. Five people rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Web Tools

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Web Tools session was 3.1, with 3 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 15 people giving a rating of 4, 31 people giving a rating of 3, 12 people giving a rating of 2. One person rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Next Year's Web

Numerical Analysis

The overall rating for the Next Year's Web session was 3.6, with 6 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 26 people giving a rating of 4, 27 people giving a rating of 3, 0 people giving a rating of 2. Nobody rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:

Discussion Group

Discussion Group

The overall rating for the Discussion Groups was 3.7, with 7 people giving a rating of 5 (Excellent), 25 people giving a rating of 4, 18 people giving a rating of 3, 7 people giving a rating of 2. Two people rated the session poor.

Subjective Analysis

Comments received included:


Other Comments

Overall Views

"Would have liked to attend more of the 2nd day discussions" - [FORM 1]

"Generally useful but not providing enough information on "how to" or "what you should try to do" - [FORM 3]

"Very good, could have been more technical" - [FORM 5]

"Stimulating" - [FORM 7]

"Quality of presentations and content was very good. Useful to have presentations on the areas with the option to discuss at length the next day" - [FORM 9]

"All useful, but too much in short period" - [FORM 10]

"Very enjoyable and stimulating - lots of information which I can use" - [FORM 13]

"Good to have the techi/non-techi mix. Useful to have the overview of running a web service, incorporating all aspects." - [FORM 19]

"Several presentations were interesting but too short. Workshop also too general" - [FORM 24]

"Extremely useful & timely. Some of the presentations would have benefited in having longer than 30 minutes." - [FORM 25]

"Good but not long enough." - [FORM 26]

"Lacked technical content." - [FORM 30]

"A good meeting - pity about the venue problems." - [FORM 33]

"I would have liked to have had more recommendations & solutions to current problems." - [FORM 34]

"Very rushed - perhaps two full days or 1.5 days wold be better." - [FORM 35]

"The workshop was very informative and organised in excellent way." - [FORM 36]

"Overall useful, but somewhat less details then I had hoped for." - [FORM 37]

"Good, but the afternoon was too long & got increasingly 'techie', rather than discussing the management issues ('running' means 'management' to me, not servers and caches)." - [FORM 38]

"Very important to have one. I think some of the content was rather woolly. People talking should really be experts on aspects of web." - [FORM 39]

"The workshop was very well run. I felt it tried to tackle too many areas and therefore, inevitably, some of the talks were a little superficial. It was a good introductory workshop which seemed to highlight the need for more specialist sessions. It was a shame only one group session could be attended." - [FORM 41]

"Not enough technical information - How do I run an institutional web service? Nothing about server choice, browser configs, what to offer, etc." - [FORM 44]

"Good - despite 'danger' of going in too many directions, it was well kept together." - [FORM 46]

"Productive, useful synthesis of current issues" - [FORM 50]

"A much needed workshop. Very useful to hear from speakers and finding out about other sites from discussion groups. Same again next year please!" - [FORM 52]

"I feel the workshop did well to introduce so many issues within the time constraints and provided a varied programme." - [FORM 53]

"Useful making contact with others in a similar position to establish a 'webmaster' community from disparate groups." - [FORM 60]

"Excellent; good opportunity to update knowledge and meet others involved in area." - [FORM 61]

"I would have preferred more opportunities for discussion groups, with presentations given one or two together rather than having so many in one afternoon." - [FORM 63]

Best Things About The Workshop

"Contacts, seeing what others were doing; putting faces to names" - [FORM 1]

"Security/performance issues" - [FORM 5]

"Meeting other people and finding they have similar problems" - [FORM 6]

"Range of topics and participants" - [FORM 7]

"Database, caching" - [FORM 8]

"Tracking emerging technology" - [FORM 10]

"'State of the nation' in the HE community" - [FORM 12]

"Wide experience of fellow attendees" - [FORM 13]

"The briefing documents and exercises" - [FORM 16]

"Pub discussions" - [FORM 18]

"1. Discussions with others in similar roles. 2. Next year's web. 3. Briefing materials / pointers to relevant sites and email lists." - [FORM 21]

"Meeting with colleagues / sharing of information. ... Caching discussion." - [FORM 25]

""Feedback from peers in other institutions. - [FORM 26]

"Comparing notes w/people in parallel sessions. " - [FORM 27]

"Dundee design talk. Next year's web. Caching talk." - [FORM 28]

"Large number of people." - [FORM 30]

"Issues covering design. Hearing from people with similar problems." - [FORM 34]

"Brian's overviews. Briefing papers." - [FORM 39]

"Good overall briefing of technical issues" - [FORM 40]

"Sharing of expertise. Pooling of knowledge. Information flow models." - [FORM 41]

"1. Interaction with other people. 2. Database integration. 3. Futures." - [FORM 43]

"Info on new national cache, meeting other web admin staff, new technology briefings." - [FORM 44]

"Overviews on first day in the various issues in particular design, information flow and security" - [FORM 46]

"Very useful with good balance of different issues and backgrounds of speakers and participants." - [FORM 47]

"Discussion groups was a good idea." - [FORM 48]

"Discussion group, briefing documents" - [FORM 50]

"Design issues. Plans for the future. Metadata." - [FORM 51]

"Discussion group. Details of future developments. Details of experiences of other sites." - [FORM 52]

"Security, as it is very important to me. Caching as I've made some good arrangements with George Neisser as a result." - [FORM 53]

"Design discussion group. Web Tools lecture. Networking for Webmasters lecture" - [FORM 57]

Things Which Were Disappointing Or Could be Improved

"Answers. I already knew the questions. I was hoping to find some advice and direction" - [FORM 1]

"More discussion groups" - [FORM 2]

"Drop the technical stuff" - [FORM 3]

"A bit over ambitious in the time given" - [FORM 9]

"Would have liked to be able to attend 2 or 3 group sessions" - [FORM 10]

"Accommodation noisy" - [FORM 10]

"The heat" - [FORM 11]

"More obvious information about the need to read your pack and do some work before I got on the train" - [FORM 13]

"Shallowness of technical aspects. Lack of 'people management' issues" - [FORM 18]

"Would have liked to have guidelines e.g. on metadata provided at this workshop so we can go away and use the same guidelines" - [FORM 20]

"Demos would have been nice. Workshop needed to be about 1/2 day longer." - [FORM 21]

"Would have preferred opportunity to attend more than one workshop; also workshops providing practical help and guidance rather than dealing in generalities" - [FORM 24]

"Environment was appalling - hot stuffy, noisy ... Rows of desks pointing forward even in workshops - works against sharing information." - [FORM 27]

"No sharing of technical knowledge or experience. No demonstrations of a practical nature. Tried to cram too many presentations into first day" - [FORM 30]

"2 or 3 case studies would be useful. One or two commercial vendors talking about tools e.g. Netobjects Fusion." - [FORM 39]

"'People issues' not covered." - [FORM 40]

"Need microphone for speakers. Need shorter talk time, more coffee breaks to keep concentration levels up." - [FORM 48]

"Perhaps targetting of some talks could have been better." - [FORM 50]

"Overall the content was too basic. More focussed, individual workshops would be better." - [FORM 51]

"Database, networking for webmasters, information flow - because 25 minutes is not enough." - [FORM 53]

"Would have like the WWW-database session to be techy" - [FORM 58]

Additional Comments

"More workshops. I would have liked to have more small discussion groups" - [FORM 1]

"Would have been nice to have an evening meal" - [FORM 2]

"Splitting the workshop over 2 days was useful" - [FORM 4]

"Presentations on one day, discussion groups next day is a good format" - [FORM 7]

"I was a little unsure that the workshop would be at my level but it has far surpassed my expectations - every speaker but one was excellent - most unusual, Thanks!" - [FORM 13]

"Thank you v much for organising an excellent course/workshop. Extremely useful." - [FORM 22]

"Would have liked it to be longer with a chance to go to more than one parallel session." - [FORM 25]

"Consider extending to 3 days and introduce practical and technical sessions." - [FORM 30]

"Room acoustics for plenary sessions very poor. Discussion difficult due to building work noise." - [FORM 31]

"Specialist days would be useful." - [FORM 33]

"Food (lunch) was awful." - [FORM 35]

"Most sessions over-ran - More time should have been given to each speaker (or a stricter time limit should have been imposed)." - [FORM 44]

"Lunchtime - lunchtime useful for travelling." - [FORM 45]

"Feeling that perhaps some issues have fallen 'between' discussion groups because they overlap. e.g. website management related to (1) metadata (2) information flow (3) webtools for management." - [FORM 46]

"Excellent starting point. Hopefully follow ups. Thanks" - [FORM 47]

"Separate technical issues from design/user issues please. I found some aspect irrelevant to my role and my problems." - [FORM 48]

"I hope more specific workshops can be arranged which build upon the short 25 min, talks we had. ie. a workshop for a day or so on each covered." - [FORM 53]

"Accommodation was excellent." - [FORM 57]

"Would have liked a session as well as workshop on metadata." - [FORM 58]

"Perhaps re-organise workshop into Day 1 - Some presentations; A Workshop. Day 2" - Some presentations; A Workshop - [FORM 61]


Web page maintained by Brian Kelly
Page last revised on: 17-Jul-1997