Whose Site Is It Anyway?The Web Editor’s Career

Getting A Job• Job titles and descriptions

Managing The Job• Institutional models

Being Supported• Advice, guidance and training

Being A Professional• Professional organisations

Getting A Job

Brief survey of job ads• Wide range of job titles

• No real consensus of title

• Wide pay scales

Do the employers know what they want?• ‘kitchen sink’ job descriptions

Do we have to define our own job descriptions for them?

Getting A Job

Titles ranged from• Website managers

• Web officer

Could this be formalised, as a community, defining these roles?

• By generating a list of skills for each member of the team

• Or surveying current posts

Getting A Job

Roles to be found in• PR, Computing Services, Libraries

Suffer from a feeling of institutional isolation

Solution• We need to structure the teams so that they not

affiliated to any existing structures

Getting A Job

Head of web team• Someone who can wave the ‘big stick’ at university

management

• Effective and powerful voice within the institution.

Putting learning on the agenda Recommendations

• Survey of current web teams posts/ salary/ contracts etc...

Managing The Job

Who to work for?– Should be independent

• Not keen on placing them because of bias towards one section

Who holds the budget?– Should be a budget holder so they don’t have to

go cap in hand

Managing The Job

Ideal team– Web editor (reporting to executive committee)

heading up team• Designers

• Support (check HTML write/read English)

• Have a team of information providers in schools/depts (responsible for maintenance) but editor should be proactive in getting content.

Managing The Job

Who are the clients – Not just working to please one section/dept– Meeting the needs of the clients of the

university– Importance of what the clients need

Managing The Job

Trying to serve all our masters with one site.

Recommendations• Cash incentives for surveys

• Lay down the structure of teams

Observation• Talk to library people about how people use

information services

Managing The Job

Get together with people in the university to decide what you need to do, break down into manageable chunks and get some quick wins.

Strategy• Be integral. You should have a voice in the main

University business.

Being Supported

Problem• Structure of institution such that don’t fit in and often

out on a limb without any support structures

Solution• The way you decide to develop the web and where it’s

placed would help solve other problems (i.e. integrating into publicity)

• Needs management who knows about the particular needs of the job

• Setting up professional groups that deal with standards

Being Supported

Problem• A lack of specific training [different training for

each role (designer, editor etc)]

Solution• National accreditation

• Regional groups

• Mailing lists

• Newsgroups

• Exchanging ideas with a receptive audience

Being Supported

Problem• Status position of senior staff to the web people is

poor because of a lack of knowledge

Solutions• Management needs to know and understand and

make sure the you’re aligned with the key business of the University

• Senior managers need to approach HoDs to impress upon their staff

Being Supported

The Web is a part of all university strategies Develop measures of success (if possible!)

• Useful for information management to keep this data

• How useful something is– like putting up basic contact details and see how that’s

changed people a few months later

Treat people that you’re working with as your internal market

• Need to sell yourself and your services

Being A Professional

What to professional bodies to• Sets standards and promotes them

• Creating generic job specs and skills sets for membership

• Define what the community does and raises the awareness of the post [raising awareness of members capabilities/skills and importance]

• Disseminates special interest groups/information about events/ professional qualifications (CPD)

Being A Professional

What to professional bodies to• Provide a sense of a wider community

• Personal development

• New developments

• Salaries survey/trends in the area/discounts for services.

• Defining/Publicising the community/Current Awareness/Professional Development/Special Interest Groups.

Being A Professional

Who they are• USA based global organisations (very technical

groups)– Useful for a UK body to affiliate to

• UK bodies something like the Institute for Information Sciences talking to the libraries about a differently named organisations

• Other bodies exist– Computing, Marketing/PR

Being A Professional

What do we want• Regional groups (sound people out)• Distance learning courses CPD/Accreditation• Current awareness of new services and peoples

experiences of trying them• Outside expertise• Special interest groups• Letters after name (but they offer so much more)

Professional qualifications could cut across confusing job titles