About The Workshop

The following message was sent to the web-support list on 14 February 2005:

Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005 will this year be held at the University of Manchester on 6-8th July 2005.

This year’s workshop has the theme “Whose Web Is It Anyway?”.

The call for speakers and workshop facilitators is now open. We particularly welcome submissions which reflect this theme. This could include examples of how an organisation has been restructured in order to ensure the provision of quality Web services; how users are engaged with the planning and development process at both strategic and implementation levels; how institutions address the ownership of content; how institutions have addressed mergers, whether of departments within an institution or between institutions; how institutions are engaging with third parties; etc.

However in addition to these topics, we welcome ideas on other areas of interest to those involved in institutional Web management.

Innovative Features

Innovative features of the event included:

Technical aspects: We exploited the provision of a WiFi network at the event for the first time. The technical innovations included:

In addition an AUP (acceptable use policy) was created for the event.

Organisational changes: Changes to the format of the event included:

  • Two plenary panel sessions.
  • Two sessions on “IWMW Impact Analysis & Evaluation” which aimed at identifying the effectiveness of IWMW events.
  • A parallel session featuring “JISC Service and Vendor Presentations“.
  • A poster display.

Funding: There were a number of event sponsors: Nedstat, TerminalFour, Contensis, MIMAS and the RDN.

Workshop Topics

Plenary Talks

The following plenary talks were given.

  1. University Blogging: What Happens When Everyone Can Publish?
  2. Customers, Suppliers, and the Need for Partnerships
  3. Challenges at the University of Manchester arising from Project UNITY
  4. Sky High or Free Fall – All Aboard the Web Rollercoaster
  5. There Is No Such Thing As A Silver Bullet: CMS And Portals Will Not Solve Your Problems!
  6. Publish And Be Damned: Re-purposing In The Real World
  7. Panel 1: The Web Management Community: Present and Future
  8. Panel 2: Responding To The CMS Challenge

Parallel Sessions

Parallel session A:

  1. Hey! You! Get Offa My Web! Hidden Desires and Unforeseen Circumstances in Web Management
  2. Conducting User Needs Analysis: Tips On Gathering Requirements People May Have For The Systems You’re Developing
  3. How to Find a Needle in the Haystack
  4. Future-proofing for Collaborative Tools
  5. Community Building – Open Source and Open Content
  6. Whose Work Is It Anyway?
  7. Embedding Third Party Services in Web Sites and Portals – From Links To WSRP the Pros and Sons
  8. Managing Stakeholders with PRINCE2
  9. Lies, Damn Lies, and Web Statistics

Parallel session B:

  1. Whose Web Do You Think It Is? Considering Web Accessibility And Usability From The Perspective Of Different User Groups
  2. From the Ridiculous to the Sublime? Lessons from Implementing a Corporate CMS at the University of Southampton
  3. Democratising the Web: The Revenge of The Non-Techie
  4. Folksonomies: Metadata or Mess?
  5. Inter-institutional Authorisation using Shibboleth: Myths, Lies and the Truth
  6. Avoiding the Legal Obstacles in Web Management
  7. WHS WEB S IT NEWY? – Including Mobile Phone Users in the Loop
  8. JISC Service and Vendor Presentations
  9. RSS: Let’s Clear The Confusion And Start Using!

Evaluation

General comments on the workshop we received included:

  • Well organised again. Congratulations and thank you. I regret not finding out about JISC and UKOLN until 2004
  • Again a very good event. Thank you for organising this. Brian will be a hard act to follow
  • Fab-one of the best. Great venue, good having everything in one place. Good to see “web” from a people angle
  • Excellent. Good to put names to faces
  • Enjoyable and thought provoking
  • Grand and great. As friendly and sociable as last year and certainly as useful
  • Excellent as always. I’ve been coming for 6 years and its good to have a cross section of the HE Community

Further comments on the event evaluation are available.

Live Blog

Owen Stephens provided a live blog of the IWMW 2005 event on the Meanboyfriend blog. As Owen described in his opening post:

I’ve been asked by Brian Kelly to act as the ‘official’ blogger for the event – although I’m hoping that others will also be blogging, as it is good to have other perspectives. Anyway, I expect to be blogging live as long as the wireless network and my laptop battery hold out.

Event Summary

Location: University of Manchester

Date: 6-8 July 2005

Length: 3 days

Cost (including 2 nights accommodation): £335

No. of plenary talks: 6

No. of plenary speakers: 14

Gender ratios: 14 M (100%) and 0 F (0%)

No. of workshop sessions: 18

No. of workshop facilitators: 21

Gender ratios: 16 M (76%) and 5 F (24%)

No. of participants: 188

Total length of sessions: 4.5+(3.5+3.5)+3.75=15.25 hours

Delegate contact time: 15.25*188= 2,867 delegate hours

Evaluation: 4.0 out of 5 (content) and 4.25 out of 5 (organisation).

Special features:

A small number of photos taken at the event by Patrick Lauke were published on Flickr.