iwmw 2003: web strategies: bridging a continent

University of Birmingham

7th Institutional Web Managers Workshop: Supporting our Users

David R Supple - University of Birmingham

Bridging a Continent


Session Overview

• Part 1 of 2 part session• Workshop with Ian Upton, Corporate Web Team on how

• Strategic Overview– Culture of Chaos– Institutional context– University of Birmingham web– UoB web strategy – gaining the high ground– Strategic development path– Content strategy– Portal strategy– Portal integration– Questions


Culture of Chaos

Control

Results Focussed

Responsible

Corporate

Freedom

Technology Focussed

Fickle

Individual


Institutional ContextFounded in 1900

27,000 FTE students

Research based institution. 5th in country for research excellence

£280m turnover

6000 members of staff

Member of:•Russell Group•Universitas 21


• 250k + html pages?• 500+ content authors• 300+ web servers• Fixed IP address campus network – 17,000 points of

access• No firewall • 6.6 million distinct visitors a year to corporate pages

alone• Distributed content generation• Highly devolved political campus

University of Birmingham Web Presence


UoB Corporate Web Team

• Manager• Web Developer x2 (now x3)• Web Editor x2

• Originally set and up to languish in External Relations

• Re-setup as part of Corporate Information Services (MIS) January 2000


UoB Web Strategy: Gaining the high ground. Strategies to take control

• Birmingham’s External Strategic Web Review c1999 Lipmann Hearne:– Organizational structure that centralises technical web

services such as application development, hosting and supporting web coordinators in schools and departments

– Increase training and support for these web coordinators– A cohesive, comprehensive web program within the

context of the University’s devolved management structure

– Development of the infrastructure to create and sustain a strong web strategy program.


Web Strategy....

• Other key recommendations:– Develop the web strategy as product– Develop the service– “Sell” the solution– Make sure the strategy is totally inclusive– Taking leadership– Developing best of breed “Ally” sites– Developing a community– Leveraging legal and commercial issues to tackle difficult

“sales”• SENDA, DPA, FOI, copyright, IPR, etc...


InfrastructureNew Hardware Environment

Features:6 new dual processor servers

Hardware load balancing setupAll IIS / Win 2k

“Hardened IIS build” :)£35k

£15k ongoing

Naming schema from Royal Bengal Restaurant, Earlsdon

http://www.royal-bengal.co.uk


A Focused Environment• Web servers that serve web• Databases servers that serve databases• Standardised• Productionised• Locked down• Isolated• Documented• Anti-guru philosophy

(no offence to any gurus present!)


Template Environment



• An environment, not just a set of base html files:• The templates uses Server Side Includes to enable

changes to be made to the website globally. • The template provides two levels of SSI, global and

local.• Global SSI’s contain elements that are common to the

whole of the University website and the Local SSI’s contain elements specific to a school or department. For example, the ‘fading background title graphic’ and the graphic at the top right corner of the page can be set locally.

• Web coordinators are responsible for local SSI’s• New virtual domain structure of www.xxx.bham.ac.uk



Results: • Pages have a consistent look and feel and have a

common navigation bar making the site much easier to navigate.

• It is much easier to create web pages, authors are freed up from having to create the complex HTML needed to define the navigation bars and other look and feel elements.

• Authors have more time to concentrate on page content.


Distributed Site ManagementFrontPage Server Extensions 2002

Devolved site management allows coordinators to:•Change users passwords•Add / remove users•Administer subwebs


Internal Selling• Drove the strategy hard and fast and

politically at every opportunity – didn’t take no for an answer.

• Balance of over committing – 3 year project and a queue!

• Project planning• Ally sites, demonstrate and apply peer

pressure• Willingness to commit, and a certain

degree of trust and autonomy for the team


At the 2 year point…

• Vastly increased level of consistency in navigation, look and feel

• 75% of corporate sites now in the corporate template – around 225 virtual domains

• Strong campus acceptance of web strategy – many bridges built and relationships rekindled

• New communication through web coordinator network

• However:– Poor standards compliancy, not even html compliant– Inability to re-task digital assets


Birmingham’s Strategic Prerequisites


Levelling the ground: Content Strategy

• Stop playing “catch-up”• Understand common needs in content generation areas

both internally and externally• Lack of time• Lack of funding• Ease of technology rather than content focus

• Develop a strategy around:– Content value– Asset re-use

• Integration with Portal seen as key


UoB Content Strategy Challenges• Standards

– Implementing standards to legacy resources– Standardising access to federated resources– Using acceptable, simple, standards that are not cutting edge

• Content needs to be:– There! (obvious but needs to be said)– Relevant and easy to find content – increased content noise– Standardised– Accurate– Easy to discover

• Real world challenges of managing: • Content ownership• Content classification – will content classifiers will inherit

the earth?


Rebuilding the ground: Portal Strategy

• Taking the content further – developing more relationships with content creators and consumers

• A further dimension of process review, making the business an e-business from the ground up (webteams rebuilding businesses!)

• Data simplification not just integration• Technologies to remove data noise through

personalised environments• Integrated e-learning environment to deliver MLE


Key Internal Drivers for Portal

• Recognition of increasing academic and student time and workload burden

• Research – need for easy to access related resources and research administration

• Teaching and learning – requirement for delivered support and resources

• Marketing• Quality assurance• Administrative efficiency gains


Key External Drivers for Portal

• Increased competition within HEI sector• Increase in University enterprise activity• Changes in student profiles – time and geographical

access• Portal interoperability drivers – interaction with key

external agencies through Portal• Increased focus on accessibility• Portals to be offered by many if not most HEI’s• Enterprise vendorware will provide web front ends


What kind of Portal are we building?• Enterprise Portal?• Discovery or Knowledge Portal?• Collaboration and Messaging Portal?• Community Portal?• We are actually building an e-business, rebuilding the

institution for the inside out, with the Portal as a technical and cultural tool.

• Enterprise meets knowledge management?– Compound Portal– Enterprise centric, but with some essential community

stickiness, and a taster of discovery to begin with– Extensions into collaboration

• A Portal that provides functionality but also pays the bills through its ROI.


UoB Portal Content / Personalised Delivery

• Provision of personalised content streams is a cornerstone of our Portal strategy – building relevance to users

• But not at the expense of increasing:• Costs per digital asset• Administrative burden• Academic Burden• Data barricades

– Or serving uncoordinated unmanaged content that is not authorized to be seen


Identity Management• One of biggest challenges is ID management to unite

our discovery and enterprise identities•

Mapping of discovery assets against:– Multiple communities– Proliferated and redundant identities

• Resource and application identity silos for Enterprise applications

• User profile and control and administration– Need for devolved ID management for all aspects of the

identity including profile– Coordination and accuracy of federated attributes– Privacy and security– Regulations and compliance


Questions

iwmw 2003: web strategies: bridging a continent

Education