Web Management Group

Web Management Group

Minutes of the meeting held at 14:00 on 04December 2008in Felixstowe Court Boardroom, Frenchay Campus

Present:

Rich Egan Jenny Gates

Helen WardGill Sandford

Keith Hicks Julia Weston

Steve Grive John Clarke

Jason BriddonJim Longhurst

Joe Atherton

Chairman: John Rushforth

Apologies:Alastair Sandford, Kevin Foreman, Richard O’Doherty, Ron Ritchie, Theresa McGoldrick

In Attendance: Natasha Chin (clerk)

Minutes of the last meeting
WM08.12.01 / Jenny had one correction to the minutes of the last meeting: (WM08.10.08) “linking to the text and categorisation manager” was corrected to read as “linking to the Taxonomy Categorisation Manager…”
Review of WMG
WM08.12.02 / The Chair invited the group to contribute ideas to the review of WMG through open discussion. He asked everyone to consider whether having two distinct groups—an operations group and a steering group—could be developed.
WM08.12.03 / Keith said we would have to consider where and how issues are decided and what we would want to achieve from WMG. Could the groups increase work productivity as well as reduce the cost of managing the website, for example?
WM08.12.04 / Steve said the current working group is too large. Often, the group covers a lot of technically-oriented material, so it might be beneficial to split it out so that the operations people are in one group handling the day-to-day web issues, while the marketing people handle the web image/branding. Also, the UWE web has no clear owner right now, although the current group, with its mix of people, has taken some ownership of it.
WM08.12.05 / Gill agreed that the group had taken ownership of the web. She questioned how strategic decisions might be reached in WMG – could it happen in a committee situation?
WM08.12.06 / Julia told the group that she had attended and is part of some facultyexternal relations groups; there are many channels and ways to reach people at different levels. It is important to have people in WMG who can represent their faculty.
WM08.12.07 / Steve said that we have articulated e-learning policies, but have not developed a web strategy. He said we have good branding and stats, but that we need a web strategy document (that could be signed off by the Executive Deans).
WM08.12.08 / Jenny said WMG would need to make sure that the agenda items were clearly split between the operations and the strategic groups. Helen suggested that a university business plan could be developed that clearly outlined the strategies. This would ensure that there would be ownership of issues and action items.
WM08.12.09 / John from Careers related that his audience is primarily internal, as they are students. He has been working with Julia. Action would need to happen quickly within the context of the strategy that they were pursuing.
WM08.12.010 / The Chair summarised that one of the major topics discussed was ownership and that he is the owner of the web. The work of the group needs to be set in the context of marketing. He suggested that these meetings will start with strategic meetings and then move to operations.
ACTION / Agenda to split between strategic and operations. All to contribute to agenda.
CMS Project
WM08.12.011 / Jenny passed out a monthly highlight report and said the pilot project for Education is going well. Joe was able to build the skeleton site for the CMS project to include a better navigational structure. People with impaired vision can also choose to change viewing options on their screen. The next step is to show the Education group the pages and to get their feedback and signoff before content can be filled into the skeleton pages.
WM08.12.012 / Rich elaborated that there are four pieces of functionality that are still not working on the product installation received from Auros: Taxonomy Categorisation Manager; Sharepoint Connector; Deployment Server and Plug-ins. Rich mentioned that although they were pleased with the product, there are some issues with the reseller. They will be meeting with the product supplier and discussions will follow.
ACTION / Rich to follow up on discussions with product supplier.
WM08.12.013 / Jenny mentioned that Joe also built special plug-ins in CMS that can automatically pull the two most recent news stories for the website. Jenny said the goal of the project is to get configuration completed by Christmas, and then to start training by end of February 2009. Steve said that migration for Education would occur in the new year.
WM08.12.014 / Jenny said she would like to have an area on the CMS where people can view a suite of correctly-branded tools and templates so they know what to ask for. There are currently three templates and different headers as options right now for Education.
WM08.12.015 / Jenny said that they had conducted a WWW Audit and reviewed all files that hadn’t been modified since 2002 or earlier. They were able to delete 20,000 files. In another audit, there were 35,000 files that hadn’t been updated since 2003, 2004 and 2005. Staff members associated with those web pages were contacted. The Unix team is currently in the process of deleting over 15,000 files.
WM08.12.016 / Rich distributed a document to the group with a list of websites that are on the web server. Steve explained that we may want to go to the site owners and do a risk assessment. Julia and Rich said they are in the process of rebranding a number of pages including Law, and the Built Environment.
Content and Audiences Project
WM08.12.017 / Julia announced that the “Teachers and Advisers” pages have gone live. The old page name has now been changed to “Teachers and Advisers” and all stakeholders have had a part in contributing copy to the website. As well, improvements continue to be made on the site (even after the page has gone live) due to increased suggestions and feedback from the Schools and Colleges working group as well as stakeholders. This is the website’s first audience management page.
WM08.12.018 / The Chair asked Julia how she would be measuring the rate of success for the site. Julia replied that she would be looking at webpage stats as well as conducting focus groups for feedback and criticism.
WM08.12.019 / Julia said that work on Future Staff pages is still in the early stages. She said getting the Vacancies pages completed is urgent and worth focusing on. The group met about Future Staff pages yesterday (Dec. 3) and will be meeting again next week, as well as after Christmas.
WM08.12.020 / Julia said that although she had received four quotes for the C&A project, she would only be considering three. There are eight compartments to quote in, and it is estimated that the overall project will cost £30,000. The next stage will be to start interviewing the vendors in person to determine the best fit for the project.
ACTION / Julia to consider three vendors for C&A project and to begin in-person interviews to determine a suitable vendor.
Re-branding
WM08.12.021 / Rich summarised that of the twenty-one services available, seven have been fully re-branded. Pages that are still works-in-progress include the School of Life Sciences and BristolBusinessSchool, among others.
Any Other Business
WM08.12.022 / Jason said he is beginning work on a pilot archive project for the UWE library.
Date of next meeting: Thursday 15 January 2009