Intro & Schools review
Tony Scott introduced himself and laid out his view of the main
issues to be addressed in improving the University's web presence.
He plans to carry out a Schools review which will involve meeting
with the web co-ordinator and Head of School, and other relevant
parties in order to find out how the central web team can best help
Schools move forward with their web presence. See Tony's first presentation
(HTML
/ Powerpoint).
Initial questions led to discussion of:
- The timescale for the release of the events database and other
databases designed to make central information available to include
on School web pages:
Tony suggested that the events database is likely to be ready
for first use in a couple of weeks and that other databases -
a news database and access to staff details from the HR system
would take another 3-4 months to appear.
- The need for other on-line services such as on-line enrolment
for the School of Continuing Education:
This should be addressed during the School's review.
- Accessibility issues and the desire for more guidance on making
pages accessible:
Participants were directed towards the accessibility
area of this site. It was noted that charities often have advice
on web publishing to avoid excluding those with particular disabilities
(see RNIB for example).
Tony said that there were no plans for the web team to provide
such a service, but that the need for more guidance had been raised
at Web Steering Group.
Content Management Systems
Tony moved on to introduce Content Management Systems and outline
the potential benefits for the University. A CMS is a system that
is designed to separate the roles of web site designer and content
editor and to provide facilities for more than one person to be
involved in maintaining a web presence. See Tony's CMS presentation
(HTML
/ Powerpoint).
As well as recognising the potential benefits, some issues were
raised and some suggestions for necessary elements of any CMS adopted
were proposed:
Issues:
- a CMS might impose too much restriction on design, especially
where there is an abundance of web site design activity and skills;
- since there are many providers in the market, some of these
are likely to disappear - we mustn't choose the wrong one;
- CMS systems appear to work well for single-purpose sites (e.g.
newspaper sites) but a University site has many different audiences
and purposes to cater for;
- do we need a CMS if we already have most of the elements in
place - staff database, events database, etc.?
- training would need to be developed to cover web site copy writing
skills for content contributors;
- although the CMS offers tools to support workflow and management
of the web presence, we still have to address the issue of how
Schools manage their web sites and implementing workflow systems
that encourage all relevant parties to participate
Proposals:
- a priority factor in selection should be how easy the system
is to use for site managers, content producers and those with
editorial control;
- any CMS chosen should have a spell checking facility;
- an open source product might offer better support options, even
if it means we need to do more development in house
- any CMS should have levels of authority to allow the flexibility
required to devolve web site responsibility to Schools, Depts,
research groups etc.
- three or four main contenders should be shown to web co-ordinators
for comment before a final decision is made on which to choose
Implementation of a CMS is most likely to take place on a voluntary
basis; however there may be less support available from the web
team for Schools & Depts choosing not to use the system.
A straw poll showed that at least 50% of participants were interested
in finding out more and possibly trying out a CMS
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