Excellent; good opportunity to update knowledge and meet other
A much needed workshop. Very useful to hear from speakers and finding out about other sites from discussion groups. Same again next year please!
The workshop was very informative and organised in an excellent way
Extremely useful and timely
The pre-course organisation and notes were very good
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 to Event
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:
- “Many complex issues – requires more time”
- “Should’ve been given by a designer”
- “Should have used ‘live’ (or off disk) demo”
- “Right level”
- “Most challenging”
- “Need visual examples + 1 day course with good lecturer / user to show good techniques, point out pitfalls!
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:
- “Right level”
- Most challenging”
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:
- “Good presenter, but subject matter trivial”
- “Not really relevant for this conference?”
- “Too low level?”
- “At the wrong level?”
- “Pitched at the wrong level”
- “Had little to do with web/network problems encountered by webmasters!”
- “Took the mystery out of networking for me”
- “not very relevant – however it was short and interesting”
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:
- “no useful information”
- “useful, but the speaker was not loud enough”
- “Too vague and implication of PC based only”
- “Insufficient time for a key area. Mention of commercial software needed”
- “Good but too general (conceptual)”
- “More technical detail would have been useful”
- “Pet subject: more, more!”
- A difficult subject for Brenda given the time limit, more time would have helped greatly I believe”
- “A little too techy for non database specialist”
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:
- “Not enough time given to this”
- “Too basic and occasionally inaccurate. Focused too much on one server”
- “Interesting to hear all the issues”
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:
- “little useful information”
- “Interesting but a little long and dry”
- “No hard information (perhaps because national cache just starting)”
- “Needed to be better explained, diagrams vital”
- “A little more technical detail would have been useful”
- “Too vague and no content”
- “Failed to explain what a cache was! Too long!”
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:
- “Interesting but not informative”
- “No useful information”
- “Too vague”
- “Useful to know about ongoing work but no details given at present”
- “Too much details, too many questions”
- “Too detailed / long”
- “Update on specific new tools would have been more useful rather than generalities”
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:
- “Too rushed”
- “Some good tasters for things to look out for”
- “Just what I wanted to know”
Discussion Groups
Numerical Analysis: 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:
- “Useful to speak to other people: too much time spent in introductions, however – chair needed to be more disciplined”
- “I would have preferred more opportunities for discussion groups” – [FORM 63]
- “Discussion group session was too short and lacked focus” – [FORM 63]
Other Comments
Overall Views
- “Would have liked to attend more of the 2nd day discussions”
- “Generally useful but not providing enough information on “how to” or “what you should try to do”
- “Very good, could have been more technical”
- “Stimulating”
- “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”
- “All useful, but too much in short period”
- “Very enjoyable and stimulating – lots of information which I can use”
- “Good to have the techi/non-techi mix. Useful to have the overview of running a web service, incorporating all aspects.”
- “Several presentations were interesting but too short. Workshop also too general”
- “Extremely useful & timely. Some of the presentations would have benefited in having longer than 30 minutes.”
- “Good but not long enough.”
- “Lacked technical content.”
- “A good meeting – pity about the venue problems.”
- “I would have liked to have had more recommendations & solutions to current problems.”
- “Very rushed – perhaps two full days or 1.5 days wold be better.”
- “The workshop was very informative and organised in excellent way.”
- “Overall useful, but somewhat less details then I had hoped for.”
- “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).”
- “Very important to have one. I think some of the content was rather woolly. People talking should really be experts on aspects of web.”
- “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.”
- “Not enough technical information – How do I run an institutional web service? Nothing about server choice, browser configs, what to offer, etc.”
- “Good – despite ‘danger’ of going in too many directions, it was well kept together.”
- “Productive, useful synthesis of current issues”
- “A much needed workshop. Very useful to hear from speakers and finding out about other sites from discussion groups. Same again next year please!”
- “I feel the workshop did well to introduce so many issues within the time constraints and provided a varied programme.”
- “Useful making contact with others in a similar position to establish a ‘webmaster’ community from disparate groups.”
- “Excellent; good opportunity to update knowledge and meet others involved in area.”
- “I would have preferred more opportunities for discussion groups, with presentations given one or two together rather than having so many in one afternoon.”
Best Things About The Workshop
- “Contacts, seeing what others were doing; putting faces to names”
- “Security/performance issues”
- “Meeting other people and finding they have similar problems”
- “Range of topics and participants”
- “Database, caching”
- “Tracking emerging technology”
- “‘State of the nation’ in the HE community”
- “Wide experience of fellow attendees”
- “The briefing documents and exercises”
- “Pub discussions”
- “1. Discussions with others in similar roles. 2. Next year’s web. 3. Briefing materials / pointers to relevant sites and email lists.”
- “Meeting with colleagues / sharing of information. … Caching discussion.”
- “Feedback from peers in other institutions.”
- “Comparing notes w/people in parallel sessions. “
- “Dundee design talk. Next year’s web. Caching talk.”
- “Large number of people.”
- “Issues covering design. Hearing from people with similar problems.”
- “Brian’s overviews. Briefing papers.”
- “Good overall briefing of technical issues”
- “Sharing of expertise. Pooling of knowledge. Information flow models.”
- “1. Interaction with other people. 2. Database integration. 3. Futures.”
- “Info on new national cache, meeting other web admin staff, new technology briefings.”
- “Overviews on first day in the various issues in particular design, information flow and security”
- “Very useful with good balance of different issues and backgrounds of speakers and participants.”
- “Discussion groups was a good idea.”
- “Discussion group, briefing documents”
- “Design issues. Plans for the future. Metadata.”
- “Discussion group. Details of future developments. Details of experiences of other sites.”
- “Security, as it is very important to me. Caching as I’ve made some good arrangements with George Neisser as a result.”
- “Design discussion group. Web Tools lecture. Networking for Webmasters lecture”
Things Which Were Disappointing Or Could be Improved
- “Answers. I already knew the questions. I was hoping to find some advice and direction”
- “More discussion groups”
- “Drop the technical stuff”
- “A bit over ambitious in the time given”
- “Would have liked to be able to attend 2 or 3 group sessions”
- “Accommodation noisy”
- “The heat”
- “More obvious information about the need to read your pack and do some work before I got on the train”
- “Shallowness of technical aspects. Lack of ‘people management’ issues”
- “Would have liked to have guidelines e.g. on metadata provided at this workshop so we can go away and use the same guidelines”
- “Demos would have been nice. Workshop needed to be about 1/2 day longer.”
- “Would have preferred opportunity to attend more than one workshop; also workshops providing practical help and guidance rather than dealing in generalities”
- “Environment was appalling – hot stuffy, noisy … Rows of desks pointing forward even in workshops – works against sharing information.”
- “No sharing of technical knowledge or experience. No demonstrations of a practical nature. Tried to cram too many presentations into first day”
- “2 or 3 case studies would be useful. One or two commercial vendors talking about tools e.g. Netobjects Fusion.”
- “‘People issues’ not covered.”
- “Need microphone for speakers. Need shorter talk time, more coffee breaks to keep concentration levels up.”
- “Perhaps targetting of some talks could have been better.”
- “Overall the content was too basic. More focussed, individual workshops would be better.”
- “Database, networking for webmasters, information flow – because 25 minutes is not enough.”
- “Would have like the WWW-database session to be techy”
Additional Comments
- “More workshops. I would have liked to have more small discussion groups”
- “Would have been nice to have an evening meal”
- “Splitting the workshop over 2 days was useful”
- “Presentations on one day, discussion groups next day is a good format”
- “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!”
- “Thank you v much for organising an excellent course/workshop. Extremely useful.”
- “Would have liked it to be longer with a chance to go to more than one parallel session.”
- “Consider extending to 3 days and introduce practical and technical sessions.”
- “Room acoustics for plenary sessions very poor. Discussion difficult due to building work noise.”
- “Specialist days would be useful.”
- “Food (lunch) was awful.”
- “Most sessions over-ran – More time should have been given to each speaker (or a stricter time limit should have been imposed).”
- “Lunchtime – lunchtime useful for travelling.”
- “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.”
- “Excellent starting point. Hopefully follow ups. Thanks”
- “Separate technical issues from design/user issues please. I found some aspect irrelevant to my role and my problems.”
- “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.”
- “Would have liked a session as well as workshop on metadata.”
- “Perhaps re-organise workshop into Day 1 – Some presentations; A Workshop. Day 2” – Some presentations; A Workshop