Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly is the organiser of the IWMW 2015 event and the founder of the event which was launched in 1997. Until May 2015 Brian was the Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton. Following cessation of funding is now an independent consultant.

Brian established the IWMW series of events in 1997 and has been chair or co-chair of the event ever since. He established the event while worked at UKOLN, University of Bath. From October 2013 to May 2015 he work as Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton. Although, following the cessation of core funding from Jisc, the sustainability of the IWMW event was uncertain Brian has been able to ensure this popular event continues.

Contact details

Plenary talks and workshop

Brian Kelly gave the opening and closing plenary sessions and facilitate a workshop session on “BS 8878: Systematic Approaches to Documenting Web Accessibility Policies and Practices” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015. Brian also chaired the opening session.

Mandy Phillips

Mandy Phillips is the Head of Corporate Business Change Initiatives at Liverpool John Moores University and leads the Digital Services team and the Business Systems team as well as various consulting partners, project managers and supporting roles in relation to specific projects.

Mandy has always had a keen interest in the interwebs, lecturing for a period in Hypertext and Hypermedia and Intranet design and management. An early adopter of technologies, Mandy is interested in joining systems up, exploring how we make the digital student journey the best it can be and supporting her teams to be the best they can be.  A keen supporter of women in technology, she founded Widgit – Women in Digital and IT in 2013, a network for like-minded women to network and give back to the tech community.

Contact details

Email: A.Phillips@ljmu.ac.uk
Twitter: @m8nd1
LinkedIn: m8nd1
Institutional Web site: www.ljmu.ac.uk

Plenary talk and master class

Mandy gave a plenary talk on “Out With the Old, In With the New: Digital Services at Liverpool John Moores University” and facilitated a Master Class on “Moving from the Old Web Team to a New Digital Services – Liverpool John Moores University” from 09.45-10.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Rich Prowse

Richard Prowse is Digital Editor-In-Chief at the University of Bath where he leads a 7 strong team responsible for bath.ac.uk. For the past ten years he has led on digital content efforts at top-ranking English universities.

He regularly talks at higher education conferences on content strategy, agile content development, and user experience design. Rich most recently featured as an industry expert in .net magazine’s Exchange column. He is also Co-founder of Bath’s first content meetup.

Contact details

Plenary Talk and Master Class

Richard gave a plenary talk on “An Agile Approach to Content” from 14.45-15.30 on Monday 28th July and co-facilitated a master class session on “Working in an Agile Way – Content Creation, Delivery and Standards” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015. Rich also chaired the session on “Supporting Our Users” from 09.00-10.30 on Tuesday 28 July.

Mike McConnell

Mike McConnell is responsible for Web & Corporate Systems at the University of Aberdeen. He manages developers responsible for digital, web and corporate applications development.

Mike’s main duties are:

  • Institutional digital strategy
  • Web applications development
  • Supporting and developing the institutional corporate systems (MIS) environment including Finance, HR, Admissions and Student Record systems
  • Supporting and developing the institutional SharePoint and CRM environments

Prior to his current role, Mike worked in Educational Development and before that was a researcher in Information Management.

If you are interested in digital transformation, web usability, social media and user experience, especially in higher education, feel free to contact Mike using the contact details given below.

Contact details

Plenary talk

Paul gave a plenary talk on “The Challenge Is Institutional: Merging Customer Needs With New Operating Realities” from 09.00-09.45 on Tuesday 28 July 2015. Mike also chaired the final session on “Beyond the Institution” from 09.15-10.45 on Wednesday 29 July.

Paul Boag

Paul Boag is the author of Digital Adaptation. He is a leader in digital and user experience strategy with over 20 years experience. Through consultancyspeakingwritingtraining and mentoring he passionately promotes digital best practice.

Contact details

Plenary talk

Paul gave a plenary talk on “User Experience Design. How Far Will You Go?” from 09.45-10.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Mark Fendley

Mark Fendley is the Web Development Manager at the University of Kent, leading a team responsible for the development and user experience of key web applications and services for students and staff. He has worked with the web for the last 12 years, initially by running a small IT consultancy before moving to HE.

Mark is an advocate of agile techniques, being a key part of the implementation and evolution of Scrum in the Web Development team over the last few years before moving to his current role. He is particularly interested in the people/process mix to explore how best to enable a team to consistently deliver high quality products, whilst also having to support and maintain them.

Contact details

Plenary talk

Mark gave a plenary talk on “From Hack Day to Open Day: Building a Tour” from 11.00-11.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Rob van Tol

Rob van Tol

Rob van Tol is Precedent’s leading senior strategic consultant. His focus is on matching his clients’ requirements with the needs of their customers, so that users can find what they want and his clients can achieve their goals and meet their targets. His wide sector experience of Digital Transformation, and in supporting clients in their tactical initiatives, is combined with a psychological perspective towards managing difficult organisational change.

Rob led the customer experience component and digital principles of a joint project, in partnership with the University of Aberdeen and KPMG, to develop a new Digital Strategy for the University.

Plenary talk

Rob gave a plenary talk jointly with Sam Sanders on “Marrying Creativity with Management Complexity” from 11.30-12.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Sam Sanders

Sam Sanders

Sam Sanders leads KPMG’s Transformational Change capability within Higher Education. He has over 13 years’ experience of working with major Higher Education and public sectors clients both in the UK and Australia, delivering organisational redesign, performance improvement, cultural change and cost optimisation projects.

Sam recently led the organisational improvement component of a joint project, in partnership with the University of Aberdeen and Precedent, to develop a new Digital Strategy for the University.

Plenary talk

Sam gave a plenary talk jointly with Rob van Tol on “Marrying Creativity with Management Complexity” from 11.30-12.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Michael Webb

Michael Webb is Jisc’s director of technology and analytics responsible for developing technology solutions for Jisc’s service development projects.  He provides Jisc’s lead expertise in digital technology and analytics innovation for new solutions in higher education, research, further education and skills. His team work on our research and development projects, creating architectures and products for new national service using agile methods to develop solutions from prototype through to service.

His specialist areas include mobile app development, backend APIs and cloud infrastructure.  Before joining Jisc he had twenty years experience in IT Services, including recently as Head of IT Services at University of Wales, Newport, and before that, infrastructure and application provision at University of Plymouth.  In addition he has also worked as an independent app developer, with many apps in the Apple, Android and Windows app stores.

Contact details

Plenary talk

Michael gave a plenary talk on “Integrating Institutional Web Services with Jisc’s ‘Cloud First, Mobile First’ Platform” from 09.15-10.00 on Wednesday 29 July 2015.

Charles Hardy

Charles Hardy

Through a career that spans IBM, TMP Worldwide and now LinkedIn, Charles Hardy has focused on leveraging technology to improve (and in some cases revolutionise) recruitment. Charles has worked with many well-known UK, Europe and global organisations to improve brand engagement, candidate experience and recruitment process efficiency. In his current role Charles is responsible for LinkedIn’s engagement with Higher Education across EMEA.

Contact details

LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/in/charleshardy

Plenary talk

Charles gave a plenary talk on “LinkedIn for Higher Education – How Universities Can Leverage LinkedIn to Engage Future, Current and Past Students” from 10.00-10.45 on Wednesday 29 July 2015.

Niall Lavery

Niall Lavery

Niall Lavery, Director, Innovation & Disruption, PwC
With over 15 years’ experience in new business models and emergent technologies, Niall has created tech startups, product businesses, managed service businesses, analytics businesses and more.  Having worked with numerous HE Institutions and consumer businesses from across the UK and beyond, Niall provides a unique perspective on what’s next for the education sector.

Plenary talk

Niall gave a plenary talk jointly with Dan Babington on “Beyond Digital – The Agile University” from 11.15-12.00 on Wednesday 29 July 2015.

Dan Babington

Dan Babington

Dan Babington, Higher Education Digital Lead, PwC

As the leader of PwC’s digital transformation agenda in Higher Education, Dan has led numerous programmes in HE and beyond to deliver technology-enabled business change. Dan provides Universities with a pragmatic, experienced approach to their “digitisation” agenda – delivering faster, more agile projects that have a complete focus on business value.

Contact details

Plenary talk

Dan gave a plenary talk jointly with Niall Lavery on “Beyond Digital – The Agile University” from 11.15-12.00 on Wednesday 29 July 2015.

Claire Gibbons

Claire Gibbons is the Senior Web and Content Manager at the University of Bradford and heads up a small team of web professionals as well as the Publications Team.  Claire is responsible for the strategic direction and development of the University’s online presence and works with other teams across the University on other digital platforms including social media, apps, digital marketing and new technologies such as iBeacons.

Claire has been to a large number of IWMW events and has previously run parallel sessions on XCRi CAP, CMS Project Management and the Cookie Law.

Contact details

Master Class and Workshop

Claire co-facilitated a master class session on “Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford”  from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015 and a workshop session on “iBeacons for Recruitment Events” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015. Claire also chaired the final session on “Managing the Content; Developing the Services” from 11.00-12.30 on Tuesday 28 July.

Katie Hall

Katie Hall

As Web Content Editor for the University of Bradford, Katie Hall creates, develops and maintains digital content for our main websites, and provides content support to our web community.

Contact details

Workshop

Katie co-facilitated a master class session on “Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Anna Laurika

Anna Laurika is the Web Assistant at the University of Bradford. She supports the University’s web community by providing technical advice to CMS users. She is also involved in several large-scale projects, the most recent of which being the design and development the University’s new homepage.

Contact details

Workshop

Anna co-facilitated a master class session on “Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Paddy Callaghan

Paddy Callaghan is the Senior Web Developer at the University of Bradford with over 13 years of experience in web technologies from time working at agencies and for the last 7 years in HE. Along with helping the University build its web presence using a variety of tools, he also consults across the University on web related projects with other teams and individuals.

Paddy has been to quite a few IWMW events and has recently given a plenary and workshop on Responsive Design and large scale websites.

Contact details:

Workshop

Paddy co-facilitated a master class session on “Working with an Institutional Web Team – University of Bradford” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Mike Nolan

Mike Nolan is Head of Web Services at Edge Hill University where he is responsible for development of external Web sites and a portal service for staff and students.

Michael has previously facilitated sessions at IWMW events on a variety of topics and regularly posts about HE web development topics on the Edge Hill Web Services blog.

Contact details

Master Class

Mike Nolan co-facilitated a master class session on “Working with an Institutional Web Team – Edge Hill University” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Rhian Griggs

Rhian Griggs is Web Editor for Student Recruitment and Experience at the University of Bath working as part of the Digital team. She comes to the Higher Education sector with a background in Local Government web, focusing on good practice in the development of local authority websites using extensive evidence-based research. Rhian recently led a web team to help maximise effectiveness in delivering digital services online for public benefit and successfully improved digital services and user experience on her local authority’s website, achieving a 3 star rating in the SOCITM Insight Better Connected 2015 survey.

Contact details

Master Class

Rhian co-facilitated a master class session on “Working in an Agile Way – Content Creation, Delivery and Standards” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Justin Owen

Justin Owen is the Web Editor at the University of Bath with responsibility for Professional Services.

He has 16 years digital experience, working client-side and as a creative agency owner. His current focus is content strategy and skills development for large-scale content transition projects.

He is Co-founder of Bath Content Meetup where leading content strategists (Kristina Halvorson, Rahel Anne Bailie, Karen McGrane, Margot Bloomstein, Noz Urbina, etc.) present their thoughts on all things ‘content’.

Contact details

Master Class

Justin co-facilitated a master class session on “Working in an Agile Way – Content Creation, Delivery and Standards” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Marcus Lillington

Marcus Lillington is a consultant at and founder of digital agency Headscape. He has over 15 years experience helping clients to do the right thing with their websites and other digital assets. Headscape’s work with over thirty HE institutions has led to a deep understanding of the characteristics and complexities of the sector.

Contact details

Master Class

Marcus co-facilitated a master class session on “Lessons Learned from Helping HE Institutions Develop their Digital Strategies” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Leigh Howells

Leigh Howells is a UX Consultant at digital agency Headscape. He has been designing and creating for the web since 1994, and in recent years has started to specialise in User Experience and consultancy work. He’s proud to have been helping websites look better, be more organised and work better since grey backgrounds were the norm.

Contact details

Master Class

Leigh co-facilitated a master class session on “Lessons Learned from Helping HE Institutions Develop their Digital Strategies” from 14.00-17.30 on Tuesday 28 July 2015.

Ben Butchart

Ben Butchart leads development, operation and maintenance of services and project manages and/or provides a technical lead for projects at Edina.

Contact details

Workshop

Ben co-facilitated a workshop session on “iBeacons for Recruitment Events” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015.

Jayne Rowley

Currently Business Services Director of HECSU/Graduate Prospects, Jayne Rowley is responsible for the provision of a suite of shared services to the HE sector supporting the work of Higher Education Institutions in postgraduate study, careers, employability, degree verification and work experience. Prospects is becoming the first aggregator of postgraduate course data with the development and launch of Course Exchange. Funded and governed by HEFCE through Jisc, this will deliver national implementation of the XCRI-CAP British and European standard for course information, beginning with an approved postgraduate taught course vocabulary.

Contact details

Workshop

Jayne co-facilitated a workshop session on “A Revolution in the Exchange of Courses Information: The national rollout of XCRI-CAP for Postgraduate course marketing information” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015.

Alan Paull

Alan Paull

Alan Paull has been involved in the development and maintenance of courses information standards since the mid 1980s, including working on the Superclass and Learndirect subject classification systems and the Sector Subject Areas (SSA) system.

He has worked as a consultant on a variety of projects for JISC, UCAS, the Open University, the University of Nottingham and other universities and colleges.

He has provided supporting technical skills to many JISC-funded projects from ‘Specifying an e-Portfolio’ to the Course Data programme. He is a co-author of the eXchanging Course Related Information (XCRI) eProspectus standard and has recently worked on several XCRI projects, including the XCRI Implementation Models (XIM) Project that synthesised experience gained from early XCRI work.

Current work is primarily focused on XCRI-CAP PG national roll-out, including information management issues around XCRI-CAP in conjunction with Graduate Prospects, and the HEDIIP new subject coding project (HECoS), in association with Cetis.

Alan also designs and publishes board games.

Contact details

  • Email: alan@alanpaull.co.uk

Workshop

Alan co-facilitated a workshop session on “A Revolution in the Exchange of Courses Information: The national rollout of XCRI-CAP for Postgraduate course marketing information” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015.

Helen Sargan

Helen Sargan has been a webmaster since 1994, and in IT since 1990. A career before that as an editor in scientific and medical textbooks and journals allows a pre-digital perspective on information. 2012/13 saw the redesign of the University web templates and their installation into Drupal and Plone, and 2014 saw us switch to Funnelback as our site search engine. Currently absorbed in managing and supporting a Plone-based content management service, moving the Funnelback search to a more sophisticated level, and surviving a reorganisation.

Contact details

Workshop

Helen co-facilitated a workshop session on “All CMSs are Rubbish: Live With It!” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015.

Janet McKnight

Janet McKnight

Janet McKnight has been a webmaster and web developer in HE for over 10 years, and has come to the conclusion that the only constants are change and insufficient documentation. She is currently Technical Lead for Web CMS Support at Oxford University’s IT Services; this involves looking after a wide range of sites and services built on Drupal, SiteManager, and other miscellaneous web technologies.

Contact details

Workshop

Janet co-facilitated a workshop session on “All CMSs are Rubbish: Live With It!” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015.

Lisa Jeskins

Lisa Jeskins of Lisa Jeskins Training can provide you and your team with training on social media, customer service, presentation skills or train the trainer. Lisa can also facilitate workshops and away days on communication and team building.  You can find more details on the Lisa Jeskins Training Training page.

What delegates have said:

 An Introduction to Social Media
Lisa was friendly, informative and easy to approach. Excellent day that reaffirmed existing ideas and practices whilst giving me ‘food for thought’.” Jennifer Webley, Nottinghamshire Workforce Team (NHS) ‘

Team Building Away Day
Really enjoyed it, lots of good points for discussion and created thinking. Also understand my team now!” Amy Hughes, Lancaster University

Contact details

Workshop session

Lisa facilitated a workshop session on “Future-proofing the Web Professional” from 16.00-17.30 on Monday 27 July 2015.