Investigation Into The Management of Web Content in Higher Education Institutions

Investigation into the management of web content
in Higher Education Institutions

A report from the
Social Issues Research Centre
Commissioned by
Eduserv
July 2009
The Social Issues Research Centre

28 St Clements Street
Oxford OX4 1AB UK
+44 1865 262255
group@sirc.org
Investigation into the management of web content in Higher Education Institutions
About Eduserv
Eduserv is a not-for profit IT services organisation with a charitable mission to realise the benefits of ICT for learners and
researchers. We are dedicated to developing effective technology solutions that meet the needs of universities, colleges and
public sector organisations.
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/
About SIRC
The Social Issues Research Centre is an independent, non-profit organisation founded to conduct research on social
and lifestyle issues, monitor and assess global sociocultural trends and provide new insights on human behaviour
and social relations.
http://www.sirc.org/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

(see http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/2.0/uk/ )
Social Issues Research Centre 2009 2

Contents
1 Foreword .............................................................................................................................................................. 7
2 Executive Summary............................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 The Web Team ............................................................................................................................................... 9
Job roles and responsibilities ............................................................................................................................... 9
Size of web teams and institutional positioning.................................................................................................... 9
Web team skills .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Web team challenges ......................................................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Institutional Issues, Attitudes & Strategies..................................................................................................... 9
Provision, authorisation and ‘ownership of content’ ............................................................................................ 9
Web Strategy.................................................................................................................................................... 10
Service provision .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Web resources ................................................................................................................................................. 10
Perceived value of the web and understanding of web teams in HE................................................................... 10
Attitudes to outsourcing .................................................................................................................................... 10
2.3 Content Management Systems..................................................................................................................... 11
CMS use – technical aspects ............................................................................................................................. 11
CMS use – decision-making .............................................................................................................................. 11
CMS use – satisfaction ...................................................................................................................................... 11
CMS use – change ............................................................................................................................................ 11
CMS non-use ................................................................................................................................................... 12
Open Source vs. Proprietary software ............................................................................................................... 12
2.4 End Users ..................................................................................................................................................... 12
User experience ............................................................................................................................................... 12
Audiences ........................................................................................................................................................ 12
2.5 The Future .................................................................................................................................................... 12
Future developments ........................................................................................................................................ 12
Web 2.0........................................................................................................................................................... 13
Gaps in provision.............................................................................................................................................. 13
Websites in an ideal world................................................................................................................................ 13

Positivity – an optimistic outlook for the future.................................................................................................. 13
3 Methods.............................................................................................................................................................. 14
4 Research findings ............................................................................................................................................... 16
4.1 The Web Team ............................................................................................................................................. 16
4.1.1 Job role / title / time in profession............................................................................................................. 16
4.1.2 Structure of the web team / size / where it sits.......................................................................................... 17
4.1.3 Web team skills / competencies: the need for ‘all-rounders’ ..................................................................... 19
4.1.4 Web team challenges .............................................................................................................................. 20
4.2 Institutional Issues, Attitudes & Strategies................................................................................................... 23
4.2.1 Provision, authorisation & ownership of content....................................................................................... 23
4.2.2 Web strategy ........................................................................................................................................... 26
4.2.3 Models of service provision...................................................................................................................... 28
4.2.4 Web team resourcing .............................................................................................................................. 30
4.2.5 Value of the web ..................................................................................................................................... 32
4.2.6 Attitudes to outsourcing ........................................................................................................................... 33
4.3 Content Management Systems..................................................................................................................... 37
4.3.1 CMS use – technical aspects .................................................................................................................... 37
4.3.2 CMS use – decision-making ..................................................................................................................... 38
4.3.3 CMS use – satisfaction ............................................................................................................................. 39
4.3.4 CMS use – change ................................................................................................................................... 41
4.3.5 CMS – non-use........................................................................................................................................ 42
4.3.6 Open Source vs. Proprietary .................................................................................................................... 44
4.4 End Users ..................................................................................................................................................... 46
4.4.1 User experience / user behaviour............................................................................................................. 46
4.4.2 Audiences ............................................................................................................................................... 49
4.5 The future..................................................................................................................................................... 51
4.5.1 Future developments ............................................................................................................................... 51
4.5.2 Ideal World ............................................................................................................................................. 55
4.5.3 Positivity – outlook for the future ............................................................................................................. 56
5 Endnote .............................................................................................................................................................. 58

Table of figures
Figure 1 – Average hours spent per activity per week........................................................................................ 17
Figure 2 – At what level does your web team operate? ..................................................................................... 17
Figure 3 – Department ....................................................................................................................................... 17
Figure 4 – Perception of the level of challenge .................................................................................................. 20
Figure 5 – Ownership & management of web content....................................................................................... 24
Figure 6 – Authorisation of web content ............................................................................................................ 25
Figure 7 – Is the web strategy integrated with any of the following:.................................................................. 26
Figure 8 – Which of the following, if any, BEST DESCRIBES your website’s form of service provision? ............ 28
Figure 9 – How well do you think this type of service provision works?............................................................ 30
Figure 10 – What is your perception of the adequacy of the funding available to your website/ web team? .... 31
Figure 11 – How important do you think senior management considers your institution’s web presence to be?
........................................................................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 12 – How well do think other senior management understands your aims and objectives with regards to
the management of web content? ...................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 13 – In your opinion has the perceived importance of your institution’s web presence among senior
management changed over the course of the last 5 years?................................................................................ 33
Figure 14 – Thinking about the prevailing attitude towards outsourcing at your institution, which of the
following statements do you agree with most? .................................................................................................. 33
Figure 15 – Has your institution ever used external consultants to inform its web strategy at a management
level? .................................................................................................................................................................. 35
Figure 16 – How satisfactory did you find the experience of outsourcing to an external consultancy? ............. 36
Figure 17 – Have you ever used an external consultancy to inform web team activities? ................................. 36
Figure 18 – How satisfactory did you find the experience of outsourcing to an external consultancy? ............. 36
Figure 19 – At what level is this CMS used? ....................................................................................................... 37
Figure 20 – Is this an open source / proprietary solution? ................................................................................. 37
Figure 21 – When was this first installed?.......................................................................................................... 37

Figure 22 – How important were the following criteria to the choice of CMS that you use? ............................. 38
Figure 23 – Which of the following bodies advised on the adoption of the CMS that you use? ........................ 39
Figure 24 – To what extent has the current CMS met your requirements? ........................................................ 39
Figure 25 – Are you / others considering changing the CMS that you currently use? ........................................ 41
Figure 26 – Which of the following factors has / have led you / your institution to consider replacing the
existing CMS / obtaining a new CMS? ................................................................................................................ 41
Figure 27 – Does your institution have a preference for Open Source or proprietary software?....................... 44
Figure 28 –To what extent has the current CMS met your requirements by system type? ................................ 44
Figure 29 – Are you monitoring user-experience or user-behaviour in any way? .............................................. 47
Figure 30 – Methods used to monitor user experience / user behaviour ........................................................... 47
Figure 31 – Do you think the extent to which user-experience is monitored is adequate / comprehensive
enough?.............................................................................................................................................................. 48
Figure 32 – How important do you think each of following audiences of the website are perceived to be at
your institution? ................................................................................................................................................. 49
Figure 33 – In your opinion which of the following will be the most visible trends in web content management
over the next 5 years? ........................................................................................................................................ 51
Figure 34 – Please tick each of the following which apply to your institution’s current provisions ................... 51
Figure 35 – Do you have a development strategy and the available resources to spot and keep pace with the
above trends? ..................................................................................................................................................... 53
Figure 36 – How optimistic are you about the future development of web content management within your
HEI?.................................................................................................................................................................... 57

1 Foreword
The websites of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are like and quantitative methods (Cox & Emmott, 2007).3 The
no other; they have a multitude of functions and their qualitative study, based on material from 15 semi-structured
audience is diverse. While a corporate site, for example, interviews of individuals in the UK university sector,
might attempt to cater for the needs of three or four highlighted the diverse backgrounds of those in web
different audiences, representatives from HEIs who management, their occupational trajectories, responsibilities,
participated in the project identified in excess of thirty target job roles and status. Cox further identified a division
markets for their sites. University websites are used between marketing and IT approaches to the web, and the
simultaneously to recruit new students (both domestic and different discourses drawn upon by individuals when
from overseas), to increase their exposure and to ‘brag’ rationalising their roles within the workplace.
about their various achievements. They have to address the
Against this backdrop Eduserv commissioned the Social
needs and requirements of the current student body while
Issues Research Centre, in April 2009, to investigate the
appealing to alumni, business partners, the media and the
management of web content within Higher Education
wider research community. They also have to balance the
Institutions (HEIs) with a view to expanding the evidence
demands of ‘old school’ academia with commercial
base. The main aims of the research were ‘to improve HEI’s
considerations that are increasingly becoming a more
understanding of how other institutions are currently
prominent part of ‘university life’. For the content managers,
managing their web content and to raise awareness of trends
understandably, this is somewhat of a ‘headache’ –
and possible future directions’. The work was also expected
particularly when one considers that web teams generally
‘to enhance Eduserv’s understanding of institutional
comprise a small number of people and are often situated
requirements for the management of web content’ and
(sometimes uncomfortably) between departments whose
inform Eduserv’s ‘2-3 year plan for service provision’ in line
agendas may not necessarily be complementary.
with its charitable mission.
An analysis of the existing literature indicates that while the
The research brief stipulated the need for both qualitative
educational benefits of learning via the web have been
and quantitative methods, a consultation with key
studied at length, as have the more general implications of
stakeholders and a national survey of HEI content managers.
ICT for the future development of Higher Educational
In research questions of this nature SIRC recognises that data
Institutions, there is a paucity of sensitive data relating to the
alone rarely give a complete picture; it is often only in the
management of web content within HEIs. What data are
examination of the lived experiences of the target group that
available often fail to take into account specificity of context,
the nuances and the ‘real’ issues emerge. The other tangible
in which not only the technical aspects of website content
benefit of consulting the ‘experts’ in the field is to ensure
management vary, but also the dynamics internal to Higher
that the survey developed for the project asked the ‘right’
Educational Institutions mediate the ways in which they are
questions.
approached and interpreted (Cornford & Pollock, 2002).1
The research project posed a number of challenges,

Recent contributions to the body of knowledge have been
principal among which were ensuring the participation of a
provided by Andrew Cox using both qualitative (Cox, 2007)2
broadly representative sample of stakeholders – in both the
consultation processes and the quantitative studies – and
1
Cornford, J. & Pollock, N. 2002. Putting the University Online:
Information, Technology and Organisational Change. Open
University Press, Buckingham.
2 3
Cox, A. 2007. The Power and Vulnerability of the ‘New Cox, A. & Emmott, S. 2007. A survey of UK university web
Professional’: Web Management in UK Universities, Program, 41 (2). management: staffing, systems and issues, CWIS, 24 (5).

returning data from a sufficiently large sample. The subject

area also necessitated the inclusion of potentially sensitive
themes in the discussions such as institutional attitudes,
internal politics, management hierarchies and ‘fiefdoms’,
funding and support (or lack thereof), etc.
Advisors to the project had suggested eliciting sufficient

detail on these issues might be particularly problematic for
an organisation with no existing connection to the web
management community. SIRC embarked on the study very
much as ‘outsiders looking in’. To some extent this has been
an advantage and has enabled us to stand back from the
subject area and view the wider contrasts. The success of the
study, however, has been reliant in no small part on the
insights, guidance and time donated so generously by the
contributors. SIRC would like to extend its sincere thanks to
the consultees who provided not only a wealth of material,
but also invaluable feedback at various stages of the project;
Eduserv for their on-going support and encouragement; and
of course, to all those in web management who responded
to the (rather lengthy) survey; without whose candid
contributions the project would not have been possible.

2 Executive Summary Web team challenges
The fact that web teams inhabit an intermediate space

2.1 The Web Team in the landscape of HEIs makes them at once crucial to
the successful functioning of HEIs but also prone to the
Job roles and responsibilities problems and issues that such large, complex institutions
often encounter.
There exist no universally recognised set of job titles, job
descriptions, or sets of global responsibilities that can be Web teams are often presented with historical issues
applied to web management in the context of HEIs. that must be resolved in order for new, more
streamlined and effective processes to be put in place.
On average, respondents reported devoting the most
time, approximately seven hours, to liaison and support. For many, the challenge boils down to simple issues of
Interestingly, the activity that appeared to occupy the quality and quantity – or rather an overabundance of
least time for this cohort was ‘training new/existing the latter (content) and a dire need to control and
editors in CMS or web editing’. monitor the former.
Clearly the management of web content within HEIs Broader challenges exist in terms of altering perspectives
seems to be as much to do with what might reasonably of the web within academia. This involves a ‘cultural
be termed ‘managerial duties’ as it does technical shift’ towards new understandings of the value of the
aspects. web within HE.
Size of web teams and institutional positioning Dealing with ‘time pressures’ was reported to be the
most significant challenge in the survey, closely followed
Web teams varied considerably in function and form by the challenge of ‘maintaining standards of authorship
from institution to institution. Most web teams, nearly across the institution’.
four-fifths (79 per cent), function on a university or
institution-wide level, with significantly fewer operating Instilling the importance of ‘writing for the web’ among
at a departmental (8 per cent) or a faculty/divisional content providers was also perceived to be a significant
level (6 per cent). on-going issue.
Most web teams are similar in that they sit between IT The actual process of updating the content, when
and marketing, or are positioned partly or fully in one of compared to the other issues that were presented, was
these departments. the least challenging aspect of respondents’ work.
This breadth of diversity and variety in terms of the The increasing demands placed on web teams are not
shape, size and remit of web teams within different always matched by the necessary resources. People
universities appears at times to lead to confusion among have high expectations of what web teams may be able
members of institutional staff about what it is that web to achieve, but they are also reluctant to release the
teams actually do. kind of funds and support that would be necessary to
make these changes possible. This challenge is
Despite having a broad remit, most web teams are also compounded by the fact that web teams must attempt
rather small at their core: a team of between one and to keep up with a fast pace of technological change.
four people is the norm.
There is often a considerable amount of resistance to
Web team skills change within HEIs.
The degree of confusion and overlap in terms of web 2.2 Institutional Issues, Attitudes & Strategies
teams’ roles and responsibilities indicates that ‘all-
rounder’ skills are required to function and flourish as a Provision, authorisation and ‘ownership of content’
web developer; particularly in an academic
environment where writing ‘plain’ English might be just The provision of web content is, in a large majority of
as important as writing code. cases, devolved to departments and administrative staff
throughout institutions.
Web teams in HEIs, unlike their commercial
counterparts, must develop the communication skills While there was considerable variation in the number of
necessary to navigate the rather choppy waters where contributors providing web content from institution to
new digital media, ‘old school University culture’ and institution (lower numbers were between 4 and 10,
the more hard-nosed world of marketing and business highest estimates were in the thousands), most
management meet. respondents placed the number of contributors at
between 100 and 600.

Nearly three quarters (71 per cent) of the respondents out of five. The largest proportion of respondents (40
described the ‘ownership of the web content’ as per cent) scored the adequacy of their funding at two
devolved. In contrast, 18 per cent said that the web out of five, while 13 per cent suggested that funding was
content was ‘owned’ by Marketing. ‘very poor’ in their institution.
Of those responding to the survey, 52 per cent agreed Perceived value of the web and understanding of
that authorisation for web content was devolved, while
a further 17 per cent agreed that content is authorised at web teams in HE
a departmental level. Slightly less (14 per cent)
suggested that marketing maintain control of web It was widely recognised that senior management are
content. generally aware of the value of the web in the context of
Higher Education. When asked to rate the level of
While web managers may have an overarching authority importance attributed to their institutions’ web
over web content at an institutional level, the authority presence, 55 per cent agreed that senior management
to make changes and put up new content is also thought the web was ‘very important’.
devolved both among and within departments.
However, when asked to rank the level of
Web Strategy understanding that senior management have of web
team goals and objectives, only 8 per cent thought that
their senior management understood the issues facing
Respondents to the survey were evenly split between
their web team very well. Thirty-one per cent of
those who said that their institution did have a web
respondents scored their senior management’s level of
strategy (44 per cent) and those who said that their
understanding at two out of five, while a further 10 per
institution did not (43 per cent).
cent thought that senior management had a ‘very poor’
understanding of the aims and objectives with regards to
Among those who did have a strategy, almost a quarter
the management of web content.
(24 per cent) said that the strategy had been
implemented this year (2009), while 15 per cent said
Almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of respondents
the strategy had been put into effect the year before
agreed that the perceived importance of their
(2008).
institution’s web presence had changed among senior
management during the past five years. An
Service provision overwhelming 99 per cent of respondents agreed that
senior management now considered the institution’s
A large proportion of survey respondents (43 per cent) web presence to be more important than they did five
suggested that they had in place a ‘compulsory standard years ago.
system’ whereby each department and unit complies
with style, content and branding rules. When asked about the extent to which this change in
perspective was reflected in resourcing, 54 per cent of
A further 18 per cent suggested that they operated an respondents suggested that resources matched
‘optional tailored system’, offering a ‘turn-key’ solution perceived importance only ‘to some extent’.
with customisations to suit each unit or department. A further 23 per cent of respondents thought that the
perceived importance of the institution’s web presence
Slightly fewer (13 per cent) agreed that their service did not at all match the allocation of resources to web
provision was effectively a ‘free for all’, in which each teams. Those who thought that allocated resources
unit or department made its own arrangements. matched perceived importance accounted for 19 per
cent of respondents.
Rather than choosing one of these three options, the
remaining respondents (23 per cent) opted to provide Attitudes to outsourcing
open responses. Many of these responses suggested a
model of service provision that was more of an amalgam
Forty-eight per cent of survey respondents suggested
of ‘compulsory standard systems’ and optional tailored
that there is a general preference for in-house web
‘turn-key’ solutions.
development and maintenance over outsourcing.
However, a large proportion (38 per cent) also
Web resources registered an institutional preference for a combination
of in-house and outsourced development and
Participants highlighted an imbalance between levels of management.
funding and expectations about the extent of web
management and provision. However, perspectives on Those in favour of in-house web management and
funding were by no means completely negative. Only 2 development pointed out the long-term benefits in
per cent of respondents agreed that the level of funding terms of cost, training, ownership and maintaining
in their HEI was ‘very good’ (scoring five), but a further control.
21 per cent scored the adequacy of their funding at four Others had negative experiences of working with

external consultants in the past, particularly in terms of just over 1 per cent of respondents claimed to have first
the reliability of companies, the risk of being left without installed the current CMS before the turn of the century.
the appropriate support and consultants’ lack of
‘cultural’ knowledge about working in the context of CMS use – decision-making
HE.
The factors that are deemed to be most important to
However, others pointed to the more pragmatic benefits institutions when choosing a CMS are usability,
of outsourcing certain aspects of web management and reliability and scalability. Of least importance, it would
design. In these cases, respondents saw a coupling of seem are a team’s familiarity with a particular solution or
internal ‘cultural’ knowledge with external technical how popular it may be within a specific department.
knowledge as the best option.
In terms of the bodies involved in advising on the
In terms of the influence of external consultants at a decision-making process to select a particular CMS it is
management level, 46 per cent of survey respondents clear from the data that this responsibility has been
suggested that outsourced specialists had been used to shared, in most cases, between the web manager and
inform web strategy. A further 38 per cent said that web teams, IT and senior management, with marketing
external consultants had not been involved at a being involved to a lesser extent.
management level in their institution.
With regard to the bodies that authorised the adoption
Interview participants described the political aspect of of a particular CMS senior management are recognised
outsourcing. Consultants’ ‘neutral’ third party role in as being most important (68 per cent), followed by the
decision-making processes can work to advance web web manager and web team (48 per cent) and IT (42
team aims and objectives while avoiding political in- per cent).
fighting.
In 40 per cent of cases, respondents agreed that the
Overall, the data do not suggest overwhelming decision to choose a particular CMS was in keeping with
satisfaction with external consultants in the work of web the advice provided by the web team; however, for
teams. On a scale of one to five, only 9 per cent of almost a third of respondents (31 per cent), this was not
survey respondents scored their experience of the case.
outsourcing at five out of five. A further 22 per cent
scored their experience of outsourcing at four, while 29
CMS use – satisfaction
per cent scored three. At the lower end of the scale, 11
per cent of respondents were ‘not satisfied at all’ with
their experience of outsourcing. In general the respondents were quite positive about
their current CMS, with nearly two-fifths (39 per cent)
scoring their CMS four out of five and approximately
2.3 Content Management Systems one-fifth (19 per cent) giving their current solution
maximum marks. Only ten per cent of the sample
CMS use – technical aspects appeared to be dissatisfied with the system that they
had in place giving their CMS a score of one or two.
The overwhelming majority of survey respondents (85
per cent) reported using a CMS. Of these, over three- CMS use – change
quarters (78 per cent) suggested that the CMS that they
used functioned at an institutional rather than a
Approximately a quarter of CMS users (26 per cent)
departmental (3 per cent) or divisional (4 per cent) level.
claimed to be considering changing the current CMS.
The majority (63 per cent), however, suggested that
Among those using a CMS the most frequently cited
neither they nor others in their institution were
solution/brand was Terminal 4 (20 per cent), followed
considering a change.
by a range of in-house, bespoke options (13 per cent).
Other more popular choices included Contensis (5 per
Of those who were considering a change, the most
cent), Plone (5 per cent) and Red Dot (4 per cent). The
important reason for deciding to implement a new CMS
remainder of respondents (45 per cent) used a wide
was the technological limitations of the existing system.
variety of CMS.
While slightly more than two thirds of respondents (64
Respondents confirmed that 67 per cent were using
per cent) highlighted technical limitations as a reason for
proprietary solutions compared with 23 per cent using
change in this sense, a further 48 per cent cited
an Open Source CMS.
‘changing institutional requirements’ as another factor
for consideration.
Of those reporting using a CMS, 22 per cent claimed
that the CMS was first installed in 2008, compared with
16 per cent in 2007 and 11 per cent in 2006. For 2009
the figure was somewhat smaller at 8 per cent, while

CMS non-use Just over 70 per cent conduct user/usability testing and
over a half (52 per cent) reported the use of student
In many cases, non-use of a CMS reflected issues to do surveys.
with institutional logistics and bureaucracy, cost or the
changing scale current of web use. Despite the range of different monitoring techniques
being used, the majority of participants (82 per cent)
The vast majority of respondents (77 per cent) agreed were of the opinion that user behaviour is not
that their institution was considering implementing a monitored comprehensively enough.
CMS. Among the reasons for doing so, the technological
limitations of the existing system of content Audiences
management were cited as a major cause for concern by
a large proportion of respondents (89 per cent). What was felt to be particularly unique about the HE
sector was the range and breadth of the audiences to
Changing institutional requirements (67 per cent) and whose needs and expectations the university websites
the changing requirements of editors (78 per cent) were were required to cater.
also concerns for those not yet using a CMS. Perhaps
not surprisingly, the increasing workload involved in Prospective students from overseas were perceived to
web management was also cited by many as a reason be the most important audience for HE websites, scoring
for implementing a CMS (78 per cent). an average rating of 4.73 out of 5. Only marginally less
important, scoring an average of 4.68, were prospective
One hundred per cent of respondents highlighted the students ‘at home’, followed by alumni.
reliability of the system as being ‘very important’.
Seventy-eight per cent agreed that usability for content Interestingly, these audiences appeared to be a greater
providers and ease of maintenance would also very priority than the current student body.
important in their choice of CMS. More than half (56
per cent) agreed that the scalability of a new system was The commercial focus of HE sites is also reflected in the
very important, while an equal number suggested that importance attributed to business / business partners
the ability of the new CMS to integrate with existing (3.53 out of 5) in comparison with academic staff (3.27
systems would be very important. out of 5) .
In keeping with these responses, 56 per cent of It was recognised that only by identifying and catering
respondents also considered the ability of the CMS to for the ‘market segments’ could content be structured to
provide future-proofing as an important factor, ranking meet effectively the needs and requirements of the
this option at four out of five. audiences.
Open Source vs. Proprietary software 2.5 The Future

A large proportion of respondents (44 per cent) Future developments
suggested that there was no intrinsic institutional
preference either way. Survey respondents suggested that the near future of
web management in HE will be characterised by a
There were almost twice as many more respondents number of connected developments. Among these
who suggested an institutional preference for proprietary projected trends, the rise of ‘greater, richer media
software (33 per cent) than for Open Source options (16 content’ was something that 73 per cent of respondents
per cent). envisioned for the next five years, while 66 per cent
foresaw a ‘greater provision of technologies associated
Cost was a particular issue for those who expressed a with ‘Web 2.0’.
preference for Open Source solutions, with 94 per cent
suggesting cost as a major factor. The availability of A similar number of respondents (65 per cent)
external support, in turn, was a major factor for a large anticipated the ‘shift towards user-led, personalised
proportion of those preferring proprietary options (67 websites’. A concurrent theme emerging in the
per cent). consultation interviews – and point of tension with other
trends – was the need to reduce and consolidate web
2.4 End Users content through more structured approaches to web
management.
User experience
A substantial number of respondents (43 per cent) also
The majority of participants reported monitoring user predicted the rising influence of marketing on web
experience or user behaviour in some way. Over four- content.
fifths (82 per cent) monitor user behaviour or
experience compared with 13 per cent who do not.

Web 2.0 three. Only 3 per cent of respondents were ‘very

pessimistic’ about the future of web content
A large percentage (72 per cent) suggested that their management.
institution currently had in-house provisions for video
material.
Slightly more than two thirds of respondents (69 per

cent) said that their institution had in-house provisions
for online audio content.
In relation to social networking online, 41 per cent of

respondents suggested that their institution had current
provision for this aspect of ‘Web 2.0’, with a further 29
per cent claiming these services to be provided
externally. Almost a quarter of institutions (24 per cent)
had no provision for social networking.
Wikis were covered under current ‘Web 2.0’ provision

in 61 per cent of the institutions surveyed but, again,
close to a quarter (26 per cent) had no provision.
The featured aspect of ‘Web 2.0’ with the least amount

of current provision were microblogs, with 30 per cent
of respondents reporting in-house provision, 32 per cent
reporting provision through an external service, and 30
per cent reporting no provision at all.
Gaps in provision
When asked if their institutions had a development

strategy and sufficient resources to keep pace with the
above technological changes, 63 per cent of
respondents said ‘no’. Only 20 per cent were confident
that the appropriate strategies and resources would be
available.
Websites in an ideal world
One of the most frequent wishes that participants

expressed with regard to creating an ‘ideal’ website was
to scrap the existing system and start all over again.
Connected to this was the desire to adopt a more
cohesive, joined-up approach to web content
management in order to establish a more coherent
image of the institution online.
Importantly, other interviewees emphasised the

importance of cohesion, but also of a cultural shift
towards a better understanding of the relationship
between content and technology, and of the real
potential of the web for Higher Education contexts.
Positivity – an optimistic outlook for the future
When asked about the future of web content

management in their HEIs, 14 per cent of survey
respondents stated that they were ‘very optimistic’,
scoring five on a scale of one to five where five
represented ‘very optimistic’ and one represented ‘very
pessimistic’. A further 39 per cent scored their perceived
level of optimism at four, while 29 per cent scored a

3 Methods the sample group was as representative as possible. Individuals

with diverse backgrounds and job roles including Marketing and
The preliminary qualitative aspects of the research comprised a Communication professionals, representatives from IT
literature review and exploratory interviews with experts in web departments, Web Managers, academic researchers and
content management in HEIs. The former required that the teaching staff were consulted. Furthermore, the sample
body of extant material relevant to web content management in incorporated individuals from both old and new institutions as
HEIs, including salient studies, was identified and critically well as those with Russell group and non-Russell group status.
assessed. The exploratory interviews enabled sector specific To further insights gained from professionals within HEIs and
insights, many of which fail to be comprehensively addressed by members of organisations such as UKOLN, specialists within the
extant studies, to be drawn. It also marked the onset of a commercial sector were consulted. This provided a point of
process of continuous referral during which key contacts were comparison whereby patterns particular to HEIs could be
identified from the recommendations of stakeholders and delineated and defined.
consultees, as well as from SIRC’s existing networks and
databases of HEIs. During the information gathering process The data obtained throughout the qualitative information
various networks of professionals involved with web content gathering stage, particularly from semi-structured interviews, are
management in HEIs – for example, members of the web an important means of contextualising statistical data; providing
managers’ JISC mailing list were familiarised with the project; a fuller picture of ‘real-life’ experiences and personal insights. It
many of whom contributed throughout the research. also helped to identify key areas of relevance to the survey;
shaping its content, structure and design.
The preliminary qualitative research enabled background
information, salient themes and areas for future investigation to For the qualitative aspect of the research a standardised, yet
be identified and drawn upon. This informed the discussion flexible script was used to introduce relevant individuals with
protocol for semi-structured interviews of relevant professionals, SIRC and the aims and objectives of the study. None of the 190
which was subject to a series of refinements throughout the HEIs, as listed on the Higher Education and Research
course of the qualitative phase of research. This informed a Opportunities (HERO) website, received unsolicited emails.
series of semi-structured interviews held between late April and Rather, SIRC researchers identified the appropriate departments
early July, during which 21 individuals working in fields related and contacted them by phone. A database detailing the name
to web content management in HE were consulted. As the and contact details of individuals willing to take part in the
budget available for travel was limited, the majority of research for future correspondence was compiled. An online
interviews were conducted over the phone. These lasted an platform for survey questions was then developed in-house and
average duration of 50 minutes. Furthermore, all data presented administered on Survey Monkey. A small scale pilot survey was
in the report are anonymous. Nonetheless, with the consent of conducted with consultees interviewed in the qualitative phase
participants all interviews were recorded and transcribed. of the project. Necessary refinements regarding length, content
Summaries detailing key points of more extensive interviews and ease of use were made in response to feedback from the
were then submitted for informants’ approval to ensure test sample before the final version was approved by Eduserv
accuracy of representation. and went live. The progress and uptake of the survey was
continuously monitored and follow up phone calls to non-
These secondary consultations built on previous research respondents were made.
conducted by Cox (2007) where in-depth discussions were held
with 15 web professionals in HEIs. Whereas, in the latter, Between June 18 and July 8 2009 a total of 134 responses were
research managers from academic departments and individuals obtained from HEIs, 103 of which were unique. In Cox and
from affiliated libraries were excluded from the consultation Emmott’s (2007) survey 104 sets of usable data were obtained
process SIRC endeavoured to ensure that, despite its small size, from 87 HEIs with responses from less than 50 per cent of the

thirty ‘new, post 1992 universities’ approached. Furthermore,

regional representation was biased, with only 4 out of the 9
main Welsh HEIs and 8 out of 19 Scottish ones completing the
survey. The response to SIRC’s survey was far more
comprehensive in terms of overall response rate and regional
representation. Of the ‘new, post 1992’ universities in the UK,
70 per cent of institutions previously designated ‘polytechnics’
and 66 per cent of those not formerly designated ‘polytechnic’
responded – a cumulative response rate 66 per cent. The
response rate of ‘old’ and Russell group HEIs totalled 48 per
cent and 76 per cent respectively. In terms of regional
representation, responses were gained from 66 per cent of
Welsh institutions and 58 per cent of Scottish Institutions.

4 Research findings Well my job title is a bit diverse. I’m Computing Officer and
Web Specialist but as with a lot of universities we had to
4.1 The Web Team rewrite a lot of our job descriptions a couple of years ago, so
that’s why there’s an extended title. So basically I look after
4.1.1 Job role / title / time in profession
the information provision from the Computing Service
Both the individual consultation interviews and the survey data
suggest a wide diversity of job titles, roles and responsibilities My job title at the minute is Business Applications Manager
across the broader landscape of web management. This and that has been my job title for the past 10 months or so.
diversity – (or inconsistency) – in the nature and function of Before that it was Web Team Manager and I fully managed
different web management roles presents a number of issues the University web team; but in the past year I have taken
and challenges, principal among which is a lack of clarity about on the Management Information Systems team… so my job
who is responsible for what, and what might be reasonably title has changed and become Applications Manager.
expected of the web team from other stakeholders. In some
Ok, well my job title is currently Web Editor and we have a
ways this is reflective of the sprawling, diffuse and evolving
split set of roles within the institution on the web, as I’m
nature of HEI web use and web content itself – as will be
sure a lot of places do, between the Learning Technology
explored in more detail below.
role and the Learning Technology people who are in a
One participant pointed to the fact that when he started learning environment.
working in the field of web management in Higher Education
I am a senior web developer at [name of university] and I
his was the only position with ‘web’ in the title. Now, as a result
am actually within the marketing team. There was a
of the increasing significance of the web as part of the daily
restructure a few years back and it made more sense for
functioning of university life, the range of staff with web-related
them to ‘hang’ the web team within the marketing
roles and responsibilities has become much broader (and in
department. It has been a bit of a grey area; part marketing,
some cases, more confusing). Among the consultation
part IT, which is actually a bit of an issue within some
interviewees, the following job titles, roles and responsibilities
institutions because they don’t really know where to put
were just some of those mentioned:
you. It crosses over.
Ok, I’m the Head of Web Services…My responsibilities

In the survey it was not possible to create a reduced list of roles
include pretty much all of our web services.
that would accurately reflect this diversity of responses to
I’m the Web Manager… Before that I was the Web questions about the job titles and responsibilities of web
Officer… I ended up being responsible for the whole managers. Instead respondents were asked to fill in an open
university website just by default and trying to coordinate response field, summarising their job description in one or two
everyone together. You know, for visual guidelines, lines. The following provide further examples of the range of
accessibility, you name it. responses received:
I’m what’s known as the Creative Media Manager, because I 1. Oversee and manage the universities web services.
manage the web team as well as video producers and the Role includes direction, guidance and managing
graphic design team. web software.
My job title is Internet Officer…In theory I have 2. Maintain and develop content/presentation for the
responsibilities for the entire [name of university] website. In central University 'corporate' website, with
practice what I do day-to-day is manage a Content especial reference to external marketing – not
Management System… intranet, not academic departments' websites.

3. Operational and strategic Deputy Director for ICT 4.1.2.1 Operational level
encompassing a centralised ICT service According to the survey data (see Figure 2 below), most web
teams, nearly four-fifths (79 per cent), function on a university
What is clear from the data is that there exist no universally
or institution-wide level, with significantly fewer operating at a
recognised set of job titles and no set of global responsibilities
departmental (8 per cent) or a faculty/divisional level (6 per
that can be applied to the realm of web management in the
cent).
context of HEIs. This is, not surprisingly, indicative of the
organic nature in which the web has developed and of the ways Figure 2 – At what level does your web team operate?
in which institutions have attempted to respond, in various

Centrally i.e.
different ways, to these developments with new and University-wide
increasingly complex management structures. In this sense web

At a departmental
level
management is seen variously in different institutional contexts
to involve everything from daily site maintenance and technical
At a faculty or
divisional level
support to content management and editing, to marketing,
branding and much more. At another level
(please specify)
Breaking down daily activities further, respondents to the survey

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
provided information about how their time is divided between
different responsibilities. Figure 1 shows that, on average, The survey respondents were also asked to provide details of
respondents reported devoting the most time, approximately the department to which they were attached. The free text
seven hours, to liaison and support. Interestingly, the activity responses comprised broadly 18 categories/departments. Seven
that appeared to occupy the least time for this cohort was individual responses that did not ‘fit’ into any of these
‘training new/existing editors in CMS or web editing’. Clearly categories are classified as ‘other’. The departmental affiliations
the management of web content within HEIs seems to be as of the respondents are shown below in Figure 3. There is some
much to do with what might reasonably be termed ‘managerial degree of overlap between the categories listed – ‘marketing’
duties’ as it does technical aspects. and ‘marketing and communications’, for example – but the
distinctions made by the respondents have been retained for
Figure 1 – Average hours spent per activity per week
the sake of accuracy.
Liaison / support, etc.
Meetings
Figure 3 – Department
Team Management
Communication and networking Information Services
IT Services
Troubleshooting Communications
Marketing & Communications
Programming and development Faculty/department-based services
Administration Marketing
Web Department
Project management Other
Computing Service
External relations Learning and Information Services
Business development/improvement
Strategic Planning
Public/Media Relations
Training editors in CMS or web editing Library Services
Media Services/development
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Publications
(Hours) Student Services
Creative Serivces/Design
Project-based services
ICT
4.1.2 Structure of the web team / size / where it sits
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%
In keeping with the diversity of titles and roles under the

broader umbrella of web management, web teams also varied Responses from both the consultation and the survey pointed to
considerably in function and form from institution to institution. the fact that most web teams are similar in that they sit
(sometimes somewhat uncomfortably) between IT and

marketing, or are positioned partly or fully in one of these officers or editors who work on behalf of individual
4
departments. With this in mind, one interviewee, for example, departments, centres or schools:
commented:
It is very devolved. Communications manage the top level
We’re seen as IT. Definitely kind of in the IT department. content, so the main landing pages; the homepage and then
Because we provide that kind of service for the whole our own site and the prospectuses, and then we have a
university, not just Marketing. It’s quite useful in a way that network of something like 300 site owners right across the
we don’t sit in Marketing because they can be quite college so each department will have individuals
demanding of our services. And if we sat in with them we managing…well multiple people probably, managing,
wouldn’t be able to support the rest of the university. updating content, managing the entire site.
Others suggested: 4.1.2.2 Confusion over roles

This breadth of diversity and variety in terms of the shape, size
I am sure that you will find that you get the same message
and remit of web teams within different universities appears at
from other people who work in similar roles…the problem
times to lead to confusion among members of institutional staff
of having marketing on one side, IT on the other and the
about what it is that web teams actually do. While some web
web team sitting somewhere rather uncomfortably in
teams experience what they consider to be an overabundance
between; the boundaries get blurred.
of requests for technical support and help with site
The web team itself sits in the Communications Office maintenance, others are concerned that their work on
which is broadly where communications and marketing are, developing marketing and communications capacities are
or whatever anyone’s going to call it. Whether we’ll still be undervalued within their institutions. As one participant
there in a couple of months I don’t know. commented:
For others, a slightly more complex matrix of web-related roles Too many people say they don’t understand the difference
was involved: between…teams …it’s very hard, I think, for people to

understand the connection between having a website, and
We have a split set of roles within the institution on the the website underpinning the communications and
web, as I’m sure a lot of places do… there’s an Information marketing aims of a given department.
Services web team... they also have alongside them what
some people call Management Information as well as the IT 4.1.2.3 Size of web teams
Whatever the boundaries of a web team’s work might actually
infrastructure operation …The third and final bit really is my
be, it appears that most are tasked with a broad range of
team which is working for communications and
challenges in a diverse range of different fields (see 4.1.3
development. So we work, effectively, with External
below). However, despite this broad remit most web teams are
Relations…So we look at it from the Communications and
also rather small at their core: responses suggest that a team of
Marketing angle.
between one and four people is the norm. While a number of
Others described the functioning of the web team both in terms participants mentioned the large number of webmasters, web
of a central group and the broader network of individual web editors or web officers and other members of staff who
contribute to web content (and use the CMS if one exists), in
most cases the core team of web developers was relatively
small.
4
This is something that Jeffrey Zeldman has drawn attention to through
his article Let there be Divisions, which points to the issues raised when
web divisions, where they exist at all, are housed within existing IT or
marketing sections of organizations.
http://www.zeldman.com/2007/07/02/let-there-be-web-divisions/

According to the data derived from the survey the average web I think something that we are all struggling with as web
team comprises 3.6 full-time employees, 0.75 part-time and professionals is how to engage with not just students and
just 0.25 students. prospective students, but also staff and academics.
4.1.3 Web team skills / competencies: the need for Another pointed to the ‘all-rounder’ skills required to function
‘all-rounders’ and flourish as a web developer, particularly in an academic

environment where writing ‘plain’ English might be just as
The degree of confusion and overlap in terms of web teams’
important as writing code:
roles and responsibilities within institutions, coupled with their
relatively small size, indicates the need for a breadth of skills Well first of all is the range of things that you do… within
and competencies among the members of any given web team. this institution, the team have to be particularly good at
The skills and competencies required differ depending on the communications; you have to be able to talk to academics,
institutional location of the web team. As the comments above be good at English and walk on your hind legs and make a
suggest, for some web development primarily involves proper sentence! …So I know in my own team there are
marketing and communication; for others it involves technical certain individuals that are better at that than others and
support and editorial work. One participant put it this way: they are the ones who progress better because they are all-
rounders; they are not doing coding all the time, they can
Sitting in IT as we do, our skill set is a little more ‘soft
go out to meetings and meet the clients, engage with them
focused’ and the ‘real’ IT bosses don’t really know what it is
and that sort of thing. So there is that difficulty as well and
that we do or what our skill sets are…our marketing and
again people who do not come from the industry don’t
recruitment guys own the website and they are very focused
really understand the University culture when they arrive.
on the marketing perspective, but they don’t necessarily
have a full grasp of the more IT-specific issues that we face. 4.1.3.2 Understanding university culture
We are always struggling to evangelise the skills that we While the differences between HEI contexts and the
have so we are not just seen as pixel pushers. commercial sector are considered in more detail below, here it
is important to recognise that successful web teams in HEIs,
4.1.3.1 Communication skills
unlike their commercial counterparts, must develop the ability
Given this issue, and the rather foggy landscape of web
to navigate the rather choppy waters where new digital media,
management and web development more generally, one
‘old school University culture’ and the more hard-nosed world
competency required by all web teams is the ability to
of marketing and business management meet. This can be a
communicate effectively and strategically with other
difficult undertaking:
departments and divisions within their particular institution.
Being sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of a diverse I think there are several opposites that I naturally find myself
range of other stakeholders emerges as a key element in the in the middle of with understanding of both; so mediation is
successful development of web resources, both for users within an enormous part of the role because I’ve got quite extreme
the institution and for those outside. This is tied in important marketing coming in one ear and the usual academic way of
ways to the increasingly complex array of audiences and just talking in really quite difficult language and sounding
interest groups that web developers must cater for in their daily very clever for five pages without any paragraph breaks in
practices (see section 4.4.2). In terms of negotiating the needs another. We’ve also got the notion of control creeping in
and requirements of students and academic staff, one now, whereas freedom is the normal way of doing things.
participant made the following comment: We’ve also got the technological angle and a
communications angle and those two have to be managed
and so you’re always the techie to business intermediaries.
So I think there’s lots of diametric opposites where the

person who’s got to negotiate this on the web ends up in Figure 4 – Perception of the level of challenge
the middle. Time pressures
Maintaining institutional standards of authorship
Instilling the importance of ‘writing for the web’

With this diverse and sometimes divergent set of interests in
Dealing with level of resources
play, effective management was another skill highlighted by a Relationships with academic departments
Having the authority/autonomy to implement change

number of participants. Ongoing training was also seen as key Keeping up to date w emerging trends, etc.
to maintaining an effective team. There were, however, also Removing outdated content
Structure of management of website content
concerns that training was difficult to implement simply because Relationships with senior management
Maintaining coherent institutional identity/web presence

of the volume of day-to-day concerns that web teams must deal Relationships between IT services and Marketing
with. This is one of the issues explored in the following section, Updating content
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

which deals with web team challenges.
4.1.4 Web team challenges Results for the survey indicate that the actual process of
updating the content, when compared to the other issues that
The fact that web teams inhabit an intermediate space in the
were presented, was the least challenging aspect of their work.
landscape of HEIs makes them at once crucial to the successful
Again this would appear to provide some evidence in support
functioning of HEIs but also prone to the problems and issues
of the notion that the challenges facing those responsible for the
that such large, complex institutions often encounter. The
management of web content in HEIs may be more institutional
following provides an outline of some of these challenges –
than technical. Inevitably the data in isolation cannot provide
from daily issues of managing content to the larger challenges of
the complete picture so it is to the consultations we must turn
bringing about a ‘cultural shift’ in terms of how academics view
to explore the nuances behind the numbers.
the web.
4.1.4.1 Challenges in content management: controlling quality,
In discussions with the consultees a number of recurring themes reducing quantity
arose in the context of challenges regularly facing web teams. From the outset, web teams must deal with a historical legacy of
These themes were then presented to the survey respondents web content and of web management strategies (or a lack
who were asked to assess the level of challenge that each of thereof) that may no longer be fit for purpose. Web teams are
these present on a scale of one to five , where one is ‘not often presented with endemic, historical issues that must be
challenging at all’ and five is ‘extremely challenging’. resolved in order for new, more streamlined and effective
processes to be put in place. For many, this boils down to
Figure 4 below shows the average ‘score’ assigned by the survey
simple issues of quality and quantity – or rather an
respondents to particular aspects of their job. Although there is
overabundance of the latter (content) and a dire need to control
limited variation in the average scores derived from the data,
and monitor the former. Often there are just too many people
three areas appeared to present the greatest challenges.
creating too much content, without enough control over what is
Dealing with ‘time pressures’ was reported to be the most put online, and how this is managed. One participant explained
significant challenge, scoring 3.94 out of 5, closely followed by this issue by saying:
the challenge of ‘maintaining standards of authorship across the
Looking at our website one of the main issues has been the
institution’ (3.92). Instilling the importance of ‘writing for the
management of the content, definitely. We have got too
web’ among content providers was also perceived to be a
much content, we have too many pages and we have too
significant on-going issue (3.86). This particular topic was raised
many members of staff contributing content. The content
by participants in nearly all of the consultations as an area
that we have isn’t written for the web…it’s difficult to find
requiring a great deal of attention, and one in need of much
content and to navigate through our website. All the
improvement.
problems that are common, I’m sure, to lots of other large

university websites where you have got a lot of people, A lot of it is to do with presentation because we don’t have
contributing a lot of data and the website just becomes a any centralised…it’s confusing to the user because you’re
massive repository for lots and lots of content. not quite sure…you see a lot of visual variation. So you’re
reading about Chemistry, you go to the Chemistry
Another consultation interviewee pointed to the fact that many
Department and it looks totally different from what you just
users access institution websites via Google, meaning that a
came from, and you go to their colleges to see about a
well-designed, well-organised homepage is frequently
professor, and that’s totally different again. The obvious
undermined by content elsewhere which is of questionable
thing is finding the search box in different places.
quality.
4.1.4.2 Preserving autonomy
The site might look nice but, across the departments, the
Given these concerns, an obvious question, then, is: why don’t
content is so variable. I mean if people come through the
web teams step in to enforce stricter control of web content,
homepage and that’s fine, they get a good impression to
while also cutting away the dead wood of institutional websites?
start with, but they don’t obviously, they come from Google
Of course, the answer, in part, is that this is rather easier said
and come ten levels down and find something that hasn’t
than done, not least because of the sheer quantity of
been changed for a decade.
information that exists on institutional web sites, but also
Comments were also made more generally about the lack of because of debates about autonomy and freedom within
control on standards of online publishing. What would be academic environments:
inexcusable in print (publishing an out of date prospectus, for

As far as I’m concerned, academic freedom is about that
example) is common practice online:
they’re allowed to research and what they’re allowed to put
Departments don’t understand that one of their basic in their research papers. If they want to research
responsibilities is to keep information up-to-date in all pornography, Nazi behaviour, incest, I don’t care. We at the
media. They’ll produce a course leaflet every year, or a University shouldn’t take a line, because that’s academic
course prospectus. Nonetheless, the same standards are not freedom. But they take academic freedom to mean they can
applied to on-line publishing. This is linked to the fact that run their department how they like; and they can try and
there is too much content on the web. Thus, the need for recruit students how they like; and they can describe their
archiving is a significant challenge. courses how they like. This isn’t academic freedom, this is
just nonsense. But the other side of this is, if you’re going to
There is a general concern, obviously, that in no sense is try and assert yourself as a professional communicator or a
anybody checking that the content that goes out has been professional marketer, then you’ve really got to get into their
approved by anybody. But I think there is a general head.
understanding that the range of stuff is so huge that…it’s
just not possible to police it all. So you go to a page which 4.1.4.3 Cultural shifts
This issue feeds into broader challenges in terms of altering
has got the university brand mark on it, which is copy right
perspectives of the web within academia, not only in relation to
of the [name of university] and it’s full of child pornography
the changing nature and form of web content but also in terms
you wouldn’t necessarily even know who to report it to. If
of the capabilities of digital media as a platform for sharing
you met this page tomorrow and said ‘This is shocking, who
knowledge and information within HEIs. Inspiring engagement
shall I tell about it?’ It wouldn’t be obvious how to do it.
in the web can be a difficult task. As these interviewees put it,
Web teams face similar levels of challenge when it comes to this involves a broadening of perspectives and a ‘cultural shift’
maintaining standards of design and branding: not only towards new understandings of the value of the web,

but also of the increasing marketisation of the Higher Education web content to ensure that what they are putting online is
landscape: appropriate in terms of style, context and quality.
That is our biggest challenge; trying to inspire…trying to get I think an increasing challenge is to get people to realise
all of that network of people to try and understand that the that the technology is not in itself the answer, still.
website is important and what it means for their reputation Particularly when it comes to content management. I mean,
if it carries on like it is today. I don’t have the man power to content management is fantastic; you can have loads of
go to 300 people to train them all! That’s definitely our structured, consistent, reusable ways of managing data and
biggest problem at the moment. information but that information can still be rubbish. And
people seem to think that somehow in this process we
The main challenges…are cultural ones; just getting people
completely re-wrote a lot of really rubbish web pages. All
on board, getting people to produce content, getting people
we’ve done is put them in a content management
to understand how the web works; I still don’t know how to
environment. In departments where there were no talented
do that. I mean, the university website is a shambles and
web editors or web writers or people who understood what
that’s after me trying my best after ten years, and because
the website was for you still had a rubbish website and CMS
people can’t see beyond the structure, beyond the
had not really helped. The people that run the organisation
organisation. They can’t see beyond the silo that they are in.
at the top level are all academics, they are not business
In order to overcome these particular challenges, it is necessary people, they are not people who have worked in
for web managers and their teams to develop an understanding commerce, they are not people who have that background.
of the perspectives of what one participant called a ‘university- They don’t understand what the technology can do.
type person’:
If it is possible to web teams to help affect this kind of ‘cultural
You’ve got to understand the academic better, you’ve got to shift’, what might it look like in practice? At an institutional level
know the courses they run and you’ve got to prove that you a number of consultation participants mentioned the challenge
are a university-type person. And if all you do is walk in with of creating a global, uniform system that could be understood
your marketing hat on and say “What you do is rubbish” and used by all stakeholders across a whole institutional
then you get nowhere at all …my university has brought in context. Again, this was tied into questions about the autonomy
a lot of private sector staff; a lot of people with marketing of individual departments within HEIs, but also involves issues
experience with new media ideas…in no way do they know to do with resources, acceptance of new or alternative
how the university works or how an academic department technology and media, and funding:
thinks or how an academic’s mind works. Not enough input
The main challenge is actually not so much from academics.
has been put, in my opinion, into smoothing those
The main challenge is from administrative staff on the
relationships and those edges which are absolutely vital. I
ground who have been given responsibility for maintaining
think there’s a perception somewhere that if I tell a
parts of the website. And the biggest issue that we have
department to improve their website they will somehow just
here – the way that the web has grown – is every single
go and do it, but I don’t think that’s how it works.
department or area or group have their own kind of site.
At the same time, the challenge also lies in helping to shape and The biggest issue really is actually getting the message across
alter perspectives of what the technology can actually do. One to the administrators who manage those that actually from
participant made the crucial point that CMSs in particular are an external perspective we’re not really interested in what
frequently considered to have the capacity, on their own, to department does what. Actually it needs to look much more
create effective, high quality content. Of course this is not the like one voice from the university.
case; instead the onus remains on the providers and editors of

4.1.4.4 Resources & keeping up with change sort of ‘Oh, what’s the next big thing?’ ‘What should we be
A key challenge to the success of web teams then is their ability looking at?’ Or do you wait until someone demands it? And
to mediate between multiple different interests. This must be then run around trying to find out what the heck’s going off
achieved successfully in an environment where the needs of and how you can do that. And that’s the kind of constant
different interested parties are constantly changing according to battle for us.
the shifting nature of the web, and according to the changing
Interview participants in the consultation also pointed out that
parameters of how the web is used in the context of Higher
there is often a considerable amount of resistance to change
Education. For participants in the consultation, this already
within HEIs, particularly, in some cases, among more senior staff
rather complicated task is made more difficult still by the fact
who may not have experienced aspects of the web and related
that the increasing demands placed on web teams are not
technologies earlier on in their careers:
always matched by the necessary resources. People have high
expectations of what web teams may be able to achieve, but And the other side of the same coin is that you’ve got to
they are also reluctant to release the kinds of funds and support know when to wind something down and be able to plan
that would be necessary to make these changes possible. ahead sufficiently that you’ve got something to take its
Indeed, in some cases a greater degree of change also requires place, which is difficult especially in an environment such as
a greater amount of work to deal with the legacy of older ours when people just hate things being taken away from
systems and out of date content. As one participant put it, them. You get these old codgers who will sit there, using a
service and say “No, no, no, I don’t want to give up. No, it’s
Where do I start…I think resource is always the issue
impossible, I’ve got all of my life’s work in this system, you
because expectation always exceeds the available resource,
can’t take it away from me” and that means that we hang
so when I started the web was a sort of [an after thought]
onto things way past their sell by date.
for most people, now it’s a key technology. People are
always wanting more and more stuff on the web, where the
4.2 Institutional Issues, Attitudes & Strategies
more stuff we create, the more applications we create, the
4.2.1 Provision, authorisation & ownership of content
more maintenance we have to do and the more legacy of
materials we have. The length of the previous section gives some indication of the
rather complex task that web management represents within
This challenge is compounded by the fact that the parameters
the context of Higher Education. As is already evident, one of
of the web are constantly expanding and changing, meaning
the key challenges emerging is that of content management –
that web teams must attempt to keep up with a fast pace of
an issue that is tied in important ways to the processes by which
technological change:
web content is provided and authorized. This in turn links into
Technology itself always moves so quickly and we are the notion that negotiation and dialogue are crucial to
always in the process of doing things better than we did a successfully managing content across different divisions and
year ago, or six months or even three months ago. putting the authority of web managers into practice.
Everything we’ve done is so short-lived; you are always

Both the consultation interviewees and the survey respondents
revising and reviewing.
point to the fact that the provision of web content is in a large
I suppose we’re juggling a high demand for our services with majority of cases devolved to departments and administrative
limited resources which forces things. But also technology- staff throughout institutions. Figure 5 below shows that nearly
wise, the technology moves on so quickly, trying to stay three quarters (71 per cent) of the respondents described the
ahead of that; trying to keep your eye on what’s going on in ‘ownership of the web content’ as devolved. In contrast, 18 per
the industry is quite…takes time as well. So do you spend cent said that the web content was ‘owned’ by Marketing. Nine
time that you can’t afford away on the projects to do some per cent reported web content being ‘owned’ by another

department; in effect however, the majority of those selecting It’s just someone in the department will proceed and maybe
this option reported models of ownership that involved various change something and they will email they web team and
combinations of part marketing, part devolved or joint say, “Can you do this?” or they will already have access via
ownership with other departments – most notably IT. one of the content management tools or systems that we
have given them and they can just go ahead and change it;
Figure 5 – Ownership & management of web content
there is not much central coordination of that.
The ownership of the

web content is devolved. In other cases, a slightly more organised approach was adopted
– although even in these cases content was still provided by
The web content is
‘owned’ by Marketing multiple individuals, sometimes numbering in the hundreds:
The web content is

‘owned’ by another In theory we have two levels, contributors and editors.
department (please
specify)
Editors are those that can approve changes made by
The web content is contributors and deploy them to the web server. In practice
‘owned’ by IT
that breaks down a little because editors go on holiday or
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
leave and then contributors ask us for deploy rights and
then we grant them – or we have historically – and there
Similarly, while web managers may have an overarching
has been very little management of the quality of content.
authority over web content at an institutional level, the
authority to make changes and put up new content is also The results from the survey chime with the above statements.
devolved both among and within departments. In theory, this While there was considerable variation in the number of
means that departments maintain an important level of contributors providing web content from institution to
autonomy and are in a position to provide the most up-to-date institution (lower numbers were between 4 and 10, while
and relevant information for their area of the website. In highest estimates were in the thousands), most respondents
practice, however, this also means that it is very difficult for web placed the number of contributors at between 100 and 600.
managers to control the quality of content, to ensure that old Many, however, did not provide an exact figure – presumably
content is removed, or to attempt to make individual because, like the consultation interviewees, they could simply
departmental sites adhere to templates or global design and not be sure how many people were involved in providing web
style guidelines. In many cases this approach to provision and content across the institution.
authorisation of web content is the legacy of more than a
4.2.1.1 Authorisation & ownership
decade of devolved web development during which content
This leads us to the question of authorisation and ‘ownership’ of
providers were given a relatively free reign – partly in the spirit
web content (Figure 6). Of those responding to the survey, 52
of giving academics the freedom to present information as they
per cent agreed that authorisation for web content was
see fit, but also partly because the true importance of the web
devolved, while a further 17 per cent agreed that content is
(and therefore web management) is only now being recognised
authorised at a departmental level. Slightly less (14 per cent)
within universities at an institutional level.
suggested that marketing maintain control of web content.
One participant summed up the somewhat ad hoc approach to
content provision as it exists at his institution in the present by
saying:
There isn’t much authorisation; the content writing is

obviously devolved to the constituent departments but there
is not much going on in terms of work flow or authorisation.

Figure 6 – Authorisation of web content marketing departments have developed a strong sense of the
value of ‘front-facing’ web content), this control seems to lessen
The authorisation of the
web content is devolved
the further one moves from the centre:
The web content is
authorised at a
departmental level I feel I’ve got good authority in terms of what goes on to all
The web content is the content management pages. While in theory I have the
authorised by Marketing
authority to make requests or even demands I don’t have an

Other
expectation that the department would respond to that
The web content is without getting into some tiresome senior management bun
authorised by IT
fight. And that really needs to change.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
I think that in reasonable terms the content of the website

Participants in the consultation provided a similar perspective of particularly…we would say that we had authority over it if
the predominantly devolved nature of control over web we had to. Although I think it would be clear that we were
content: not exercising our authority on a daily basis. Whether an
academic department would understand that they’re
Generally the content will be authorised by the person
really…you know, that they’ve had part of ‘my site’
either who’s commissioned it and that commission will
delegated to them – it’s not their property – whether they
come through a more senior committee or it will be their
would have the same understanding of that, I really
area of expertise anyway… It’s the individual who’s been
wouldn’t put any money on that.
tasked with it who takes that on.
Part of this awareness, then, comes from a more nuanced

An interesting point raised by one participant is that the
understanding of the nature of the academic environment in
devolution of control over web content frequently involves
which HEI web teams are working, particularly in terms of
individuals with a wide and generally unregulated skill set in
issues to do with academic freedom and ‘ownership’ of
terms of web management, web design, and so on:
departmental sites. As seen earlier one participant made the
[Authorisation] is completely varied across the institution …I point that management strategies from the commercial sector
think one of our big problems is that there is a massive do not translate directly or comfortably to the HE context
range of people in that role. Sometimes some departments because web teams must be mindful of the politics of control
do have a full time person looking after their website, a full and autonomy that underpin much academic practice (in
time web manager, some departments might have a leading theory, at least):
academic who looks after their research group website, or
I think HE is unique in that websites have been grown from
sometimes a PA who gets given content on a Friday
the ground up and they have been built by people in
afternoon gets content to put up and doesn’t have any
departments and sections higgledy-piggledy all over the
ownership of the content…it’s a complete range of abilities,
place… I think particularly in institutions with a culture of
experiences, level of professionalism, level of support.
academic freedom and independence, people are
4.2.1.2 Total control in theory, mediated control in practice? accustomed to having to have the right to publish things on
Interestingly, web managers were also well aware of the balance the web and, “Fuck off the management”, they are not the
between having absolute control over web content in theory, ones to take control, you know? People coming in from
and the fact that in practice negotiating content with academic industry, new management from industry can’t understand
departments can be a political undertaking through which their why the management just can’t assert control; there is a
authority is often questioned. While a close control can be great kind of to and fro between management and the
maintained over principle sites (particularly in institutions where people.

For some, this is an issue which is slowly being resolved through (2009), while 15 per cent said the strategy had been put into
consultation and deliberation with administrators, academics effect the year before (2008).
and management. Effectively presenting the benefits of a
4.2.2.1 Aims of web strategies
centrally-organised strategy for content management in a way
Among the open responses to the question about the aims of
that recognises the interests of those involved has proven crucial
the strategy, a number of answers were popular. Many cited
in changing the ‘culture’ of web use in particular institutions:
‘usability’ or ‘improving the user experience’ as a key aim of
I suppose we’re somewhere in the middle at the moment, their web strategy; others mentioned the need to consolidate
in that the website, if you look at it, is just made up of you and centralise web sites; others focused on providing accurate
know a rainbow effect of different websites all put together and up-to-date information for students, staff, and prospective
at different times, using different templates and so on and so students/clients. Successful branding and a cohesive public
on… And, again, three-four years ago people would have ‘face’ were also key concerns mentioned by respondents.
been like, “No, we want our own look, we want our own
Among those with web strategies in place, a large proportion of
feel”. This, that and the other, “We don’t want to comply”.
the survey respondents suggested that the introduction of the
But we’ve done a lot of research with prospective students,
web strategy was coordinated primarily by either a marketing
prospective researchers, prospective members of staff, other
team or a web group, or both. Marketing and web groups were
external stakeholders; and time and time they come back
also most frequently cited as being responsible for the
going “When you go from one department to another they
implementation of web strategies.
look completely different”.
4.2.2.2 Web strategy integration
We’ve managed to assert authority in governance without
In keeping with answers highlighting the role of marketing in the
treading on people’s toes. We have established a Web
introduction and development of web strategies, a majority of
Strategy Group which is chaired by one of the vice
respondents to the survey (59 per cent) also suggested that web
principals and has representatives from all interested parties.
strategies had been integrated with a marketing strategy (see
They have signed off on every step along the process which
Figure 7 below). Slightly fewer (50 per cent) suggested that their
kind of gives a lot of people a chance to input into the
web strategy was integrated with a communications strategy,
process and vent and argue things out…but ultimately has
and fewer still (39 per cent) mentioned integration with an IT
senior management sanctions… so that has honestly been
strategy.
useful for us with this process of change; making sure that
everyone feels like they have had a chance to contribute. Figure 7 – Is the web strategy integrated with any of the following:
For others, progress still remains to be made. In the next Marketing Strategy
section, we move on to explore the different strategies that web Communication

Strategy
teams are beginning to implement (or not) in order to change
the landscape of web use in their particular institutional IT Strategy
contexts.
Other
4.2.2 Web strategy

Information Strategy
Respondents to the survey were evenly split between those who
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
said that their institution did have a web strategy (44 per cent)
and those who said that their institution did not (43 per cent).
4.2.2.3 Successful strategies
Among those who did have a strategy, almost a quarter (24 per Among the consultation interviewees it was possible to gather
cent) said that the strategy had been implemented this year more detailed information about what these web strategies

might actually look like. One described a ‘spoke and hub’ attractiveness, appropriateness of appearance, ease of use
approach to centralising and consolidating institutional sites etc.
with the use of a new management strategy and CMS. This
Most answers, however, did not provide a great deal of detail
approach involved quite a strong ‘corporate’ element:
about how exactly web teams intended to measure the
And what we’re trying to do now…we’ve actually brought effectiveness of web strategies.
together the web developers… and we’ve now got a full,
4.2.2.5 Difficulties with strategies
ten-strong web team…What we’re trying to do is really
Others, however, reported less optimistic outlooks about the
claw back ownership of the web and make it much more of
feasibility, profile and/or success of the web strategies in place
a corporate resource; so we’re looking at centralising more
in their institutions. For a number of consultation respondents,
of the content and pulling it back into the centre and then
web strategies seemed good in theory, but were seldom fully
working with people – particularly in academic departments
realised in practice:
– a kind of hub and spoke model where we can work with
people in departments who actually know the information There is a web strategy but [the] web strategy tends to be
that needs to be up there…We’ll do the design and the led with an academic chair and the academic chair is all for
layout so that we bring some consistency and quality, really, freedom and professional anarchy… I sometimes feel the
into our website. department’s identity gets in the way of the seamless
promotion of the university to its external audience; and he
Another participant was very positive about the outcomes of a
very often feels that central joined up university
new web strategy to streamline institutional web content and
communications seriously gets in the way of promoting
promote consistency across different sites:
departments effectively. And the two of us have come
I think it is improving. Every new project that has come in together somewhat and have moved towards each others
the past has 6-12 months has been done the right way. We positions over the years, but I don’t think we’ve ever been
have made sure from the outset that the content is written very brave with a proper what I would call ‘web strategy’
the right way, is well written, the right tone is which talks about what the web is really meant to achieve.
used…Everything at the moment seems to be improving as

There are policies in place about maintaining the currency
people get a better understanding of what is required. We
of content and the responsibility of site owners but I suspect
have a dedicated staff development team and they carry out
that none of them even know they exist… There is certainly
all of the CMS training. So they are heavily involved at each
not a strong feeling of responsibility to the site owners
step of the process...
across the [university].
4.2.2.4 Measuring the success of web strategies

4.2.2.6 Absence of web strategies
In terms of how the success of web strategies is measured,
We were talking about this just the other day! Shouldn’t we
respondents were slightly less conclusive. Many offered answers
have a web strategy!
to the effect that this was still under consideration (‘still being
developed – but likely to include user journey stats, site owner For others still, the notion of a web strategy was entirely
engagement etc’); while a number of others suggested that they theoretical. A number of participants mentioned institutional
were using Google Analytics. The most detailed response politics and the difficulties associated with actually
suggested implementing a web strategy as being the chief reasons for not
having strategies in place. However, among the 44 per cent of
Number of hits, stickiness, number of unique visitors,
survey participants who said that there was not yet a web
number of fans/friends/followers on social networking sites.
strategy in place in their institution, more than half (55 per cent)
We also run focus groups that address things such as
suggested that there are plans in place to implement a strategy

soon. Given that most institutions who have already put a In terms of models of service provision, a large proportion of
strategy in place have done so in the past 24 months, the survey respondents (43 per cent) suggested that they had in
remainder are perhaps not too far behind. Indeed, 34 per cent place a ‘compulsory standard system’ whereby each
suggested that they would be implementing a strategy within department and unit complies with style, content and branding
the next 4-6 months. In the meantime, old challenges and rules. The same percentage also suggested that resourcing for
solutions persist in terms of building and maintaining consensus: the web team took place at an institutional level, with an
institutional web team. A further 18 per cent suggested that
I’ve not seen a communications strategy. I think it’s
they operated an optional tailored system, offering a ‘turn-key’
something we always want to do better at…So we try and
solution with customisations to suit each unit or department.
pick our best practice from that and then kind of take that
This was resourced at an institutional level, in some cases as
out across the university, but we never formalised it in a
charged services. Slightly fewer (13 per cent) agreed that their
document.
service provision was effectively a ‘free for all’, in which each
I came in a number of years ago to a complete and utter unit or department made its own arrangements. This was
lack of management of any sort and we’re probably towards resourced at department or unit level, usually with a dedicated
the tail-end of catching up… There’s nothing formally in member of staff, or sub-contracted to a consultancy.
place at the moment it’s project or objective driven rather
Rather than choosing one of these three options, the remaining
than a site-wide objective.
respondents (23 per cent) opted to provide open responses.
4.2.3 Models of service provision Many of these responses suggested a model of service provision
that was more of an amalgam of ‘compulsory standard systems’
A number of the consultees provided some useful descriptions
and optional tailored ‘turn key’ solutions. Responses such as
of the different models of service provision within HEIs. These
descriptions were used in the survey in an attempt to get a UK- Combination of 2 and 3 – depts. must adhere to branding
wide picture. Trying to distil the complexities of service but do not have to use the web team.
provision into three categories, however, was not without its
problems – a number of respondents were unable to Moving to the CMS is pushing us towards 3’ and ‘A
compartmentalise their form of service provision and found the combination of 2 and 3 – departments must follow design
options provided a little restrictive. These contributors were guidelines but have some freedom’
provided with an ‘other’ option and a free-text box in which to

were commonplace. This is very much in keeping with both
submit appropriate details.
survey responses and responses from the consultation
Figure 8 – Which of the following, if any, BEST DESCRIBES your interviews regarding the nature of service provision and the
website’s form of service provision? realities of web strategies in practice. As one survey
participant put it,
A compulsory
standard system
Hmmm, a mixture. 'Compulsory' is too strong a word but
style is imposed by the content management system and the
Other
Web Team keeps an eye on what's going on and will inform
An optional tailored contributors if there's too much deviation or we tell them
system
about 'best practice' – this is a good phrase to use as it
A 'free for all'

doesn't sound as if you're giving them a row for mucking
things up!
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

4.2.3.1 Decision-making processes for choosing models of aspect to the method of service provision, in order to ensure a)
service provision
that web content can be managed by specialists (i.e. individual
A considerable proportion (32 per cent) of survey respondents
departments) in particular fields and b) that web teams are not
agreed that the decision to choose a particular approach to
overburdened with the rather imposing task of managing and
service provision was made between the web team and senior
maintaining all content, all of the time. Some comments also
management, while only slightly fewer (30 per cent) suggested
mentioned the advantages of maintaining a degree of creativity
that the choice had been that of senior management alone.
and innovation within the system by devolving authority and
Only 7 per cent said that the web team had been solely
control and giving a sense of ownership to departments and
responsible for choosing the method of service provision used
other stakeholders. Design flexibility and ease of use were also
in their institution. Interestingly, almost a fifth of respondents
considered to be important.
(20 per cent) said that they didn’t know who had made the
decision. Among those who chose to provide an open response For those with a ‘free for all’ approach to service provision the
(12 per cent), most suggested that the process had evolved main advantage was freedom, independence and individuality
organically over time without any explicit decision-making in terms of content provision and design.
process in place (‘It wasn't a conscious decision – it's how things
4.2.3.3 Weaknesses
have evolved’).
Predictably, each of these different approaches to service
4.2.3.2 Strengths provision also had its weaknesses – leading, presumably, to the
Given the option to describe through open responses the three decision to combine these different approaches among many
most important strengths of the model of service provision respondents. Weaknesses of the compulsory model included a
being used in their institution, survey respondents provided a lack of flexibility and a lack of ‘buy-in’ or sense of ownership
broad range of answers. Among those with a compulsory from users. For the ‘optional tailored’ approach, inconsistency
model, comments mostly related to ‘consistency’: not was a major drawback. In the case of a ‘free for all’ approach
surprisingly, using a compulsory model appeared to present a the lack of clarity and quality control was considered a
means to standardize practices across the various departments considerable downside. However, even a combined approach
and areas of each institution. This was described not only in to service provision appears to be something of a double-edged
terms of managing the quality and quantity of content but also sword. While increased consistency was seen as a strength of
with regards to branding, design and style. The following service provision for some, for others inconsistency continued
comments represent typical responses in this respect: to be a major issue:
1. Uniform 'brand' and coherent institutional identity. The turn key format can mean that there is enough of a
difference between sites/pages to be confusing because it
2. Consistent branding, look and feel – less confusing
looks roughly the same on the surface, but when it comes
for external users
down to it, it isn't’.
3. Consistent branding, usability, look and feel and
This was linked to the inability of some web teams to enforce
quality
the agreed model of service provision across different
Other popular responses included those that pointed out the departments. The following comments highlight the negative
advantages of a more ‘corporate’ feel to the website, cleaner impact of allowing departmental ownership and autonomy.
design, and the benefits of being able to control and monitor
Allows one or two "awkward so-and-sos" to have their own
content across institutional websites.
way.
Among those using an ‘optional tailored’ model, a number of

Strong branding enforcement is difficult and policing
responses also described the benefits of maintaining a devolved
websites takes time.

For others, the potential lack of flexibility when using a model cent of those with a ‘free for all’ approach scored their
of service provision that is closer to the compulsory standard approach to service provision at 2 out of 5.
ideal means that it is difficult to maintain the continued
While most are generally happy with their current approach to
engagement of individual departments. Concerns were also
web management, then, it appears that there exists a rather
raised about the duplication of content online:
delicate balance between achieving consistency and
Content is still department-lead rather than subject-lead, effectiveness and maintaining autonomy and individuality
e.g. accommodation information appears within among diverse and sometimes disparate departments. This is at
prospectuses but is repeated on the Accommodation once the strength and the weakness of the varying combinations
Office's site. Lots of duplication (of content and manpower). of compulsory standard and turn key models put into place in
different institutional contexts.
Many of these issues also manifest themselves in terms of an
increased workload (in the short-term at least) for the small web 4.2.4 Web team resourcing
teams that are frequently tasked with weathering the changes
4.2.4.1 Web team perceptions of available resources
that the implementation of a new model of service provision
The earlier section in this report related to the challenges that
brings.
web teams face has already pointed to the issues of resourcing
4.2.3.4 Satisfaction with models of service provision and funding as potential hurdles to effective web management.
Despite these weaknesses, survey respondents recorded It is interesting in this sense to note that both the consultation
generally positive comments about how their models of service interviewees and the survey respondents make issue of the
provision work – although some considerable differences can imbalance between levels of funding and expectations about
be seen between different approaches. the extent of web management and provision. One interview
participant explained this imbalance by saying:
Figure 9 – How well do you think this type of service provision
works?
I think it [is] becoming screamingly obvious that…I think
universities have a habit of going “Yes, the web is the future”
1 – Very badly
without actually giving it any resource because it’s seen as
2 being free and actually it’s a huge entity involving a lot of
people, underlying technologies, and it needs managing in
3
the same way as any other resource.
4
While survey respondents tend to agree with this view (see
5 – Very well below), perspectives on funding were by no means completely
negative among participants. Survey respondents were asked to
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
give an indication of their satisfaction with the levels of funding
On a scale of one to five, with five being ‘very well’ and one available to them by providing a score out of five, with five
being ‘very badly’, the compulsory model scored highest among representing a ‘very good’ level of funding, and one
respondents, with an average score of 3.78. The optional representing a ‘very poor’ level.
tailored model scored an average of 3.47 out of 5, while the

Only 2 per cent of respondents agreed that the level of funding
‘free for all’ approach faired much less well at 2.53 out of 5.
in their HEI was ‘very good’ (scoring ‘5’), but a further 21 per
Accordingly, users of the compulsory model also showed the
cent scored the adequacy of their funding at four out of five.
highest levels of satisfaction, with 51 per cent scoring their
The largest proportion of respondents (40 per cent) scored the
approach to service provision at 4 out of 5. In contrast, 40 per
adequacy of their funding at ‘2’ out of ‘5’, while 13 per cent

suggested that funding was ‘very poor’ in their institution (‘1’ [the web is] perceived to be very important – almost crucial.
out of ‘5’).
[Is this matched by the level of investment or resources,
Figure 10 – What is your perception of the adequacy of the funding would you say?]
available to your website/ web team?
Hell, no! An example is that only last year did the university
1 - very poor website get any form of recurrent budget. Yet every senior
document, every strategic plan says ‘Ah, communications,
2
web – crucial’. Right. It’s so crucial that you’re spending
3 nothing on it. My own team manager is very aware of that
and working on that. It’s something that you have to
4
gradually grow.
5 - very good
In open responses to the survey, participants provided similar
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% comments about the differences between expectations and
funding, and changing trends over time:
On the positive end of the spectrum, one interview participant
made the following comment about funding: Over my 8 1/2 years, the mismatch has always been: senior
management want "the best website in the sector", but
You can never have enough! I think we’re reasonable. We almost never have any resources available to properly fund
are under quite a lot of pressure so I wouldn’t mind, you
its development. Print-based marketing has traditionally
know, the odd – one more developer or something like that.
seen the lion share of spending, but this has slowly been
But in the scheme of things compared to some institutions moved to digital in the last few years, in line with
I’ve talked to. I don’t think I do that badly. But, yeah I accepters/decliners surveys showing that web has now
wouldn’t mind more! But I don’t think anyone would
overtaken printed media as one of the key decision-making
disagree with that!
factors.
Others were aware that positive changes were being made to The web is always cited as the most important tool for
match expectations with the appropriate levels of funding: marketing and communications to all of our stakeholders,
and yet the time and effort that is put in across the
I think it’s getting there. I mean, over the past couple of
institution is nowhere near commensurate with this opinion!
years we’ve got the CMS and we’ve got three new posts
The mindset still isn't there. A big culture change task.
and that to me is a really good indication that it’s getting
there. And, again, the university’s got to weigh up all of its Senior Management are vocal in their support and
other priorities but I certainly think with what we’ve got understanding but fail to direct funding/resources our way
now we can make a massive effort and a huge change from to deliver their high expectations.
what we had before.
On the negative end of the spectrum, however, funding was an

ongoing issue for concern:
The growth in importance and relevance and impacts of the

web versus the amount of resource that HEIs are willing to
throw at the problem, there doesn’t seem to be much of a
correlation.

4.2.5 Value of the web team very well. The majority of responses, however, are
Figure 11 – How important do you think senior management towards the lower end of the scale: 31 per cent of respondents
considers your institution’s web presence to be? scored their senior management’s level of understanding at two,
while a further 10 per cent thought that senior management
1 - not important
had a ‘very poor’ understanding of the aims and objectives with
regards to the management of web content.
2
In a number of cases, similar sentiments were echoed in the

3
consultation interviews – although there were also cases where
4 interviewees appeared to have very positive relations with
senior management. The following comment represents an
5 - very important
example of the former perspective:
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
I think that they are waking up to it, the senior

In keeping with the responses about the disjuncture between management at last, yes. I mean they were the last people
expectations levied on web teams and the allocation of to catch on; everybody on the ground knows how
resources, it was widely recognised that senior management are important it is, I think we are now in the best possible
generally aware of the value of the web in the context of Higher position to make changes, but it has taken a long time. I
Education – even if their knowledge and understanding of the think they are starting to realise that most normal people,
nature of the web is often quite limited. When asked to rate the most students, do things through the web rather than
level of importance attributed to their institutions’ web writing letters.
presence, 55 per cent agreed that senior management thought
Another consultee, on the other hand, provides an example of
the web was ‘very important’. However, when asked to rank
the latter. Interestingly, he/she points to the fact that while the
the level of understanding that senior management have of web
objectives of the web team are recognised by senior
team goals and objectives, a slightly more complex picture
management, much work still needs to be done to make web
emerged.
team aims and objectives clearer to management further down
Figure 12 – How well do think other senior management the line:
understands your aims and objectives with regards to the
management of web content? I don’t think that that connection has been made far
enough down the college; it has at the very top level, our
1 - very poorly
director loves the web and it is the most important thing we
are doing, which is fantastic, and we have a really good web
2
management board, but in terms of line management,
3 people who have web responsibilities, heads of

departments…I certainly don’t feel that at that level, its
4
considered anything more than a chore.
5 - very well 4.2.5.1 Changing perceptions of the web

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Almost three quarters (74 per cent) of respondents agreed that
the perceived importance of their institution’s web presence
On a scale of one to five, with five representing ‘very well’ and had changed among senior management during the past five
one representing ‘very poorly’, 8 per cent thought that their years.
senior management understood the issues facing their web

Figure 13 – In your opinion has the perceived importance of your also registered an institutional preference for a combination of
institution’s web presence among senior management changed over in-house and outsourced development and management (48
the course of the last 5 years?
per cent agreed with the former, and 38 per cent with the
latter).
Yes When asked to elaborate on the reasons for these preferences,

survey respondents provided a range of open responses. Those
in favour of in-house web management and development
pointed out the long-term benefits in terms of cost, training,
No ownership and maintaining control:
Train up existing web team to be able to develop and

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% troubleshoot rather than reliance on external providers
Moreover, an overwhelming 99 per cent of respondents agreed I have consistently argued that it is best to invest in our own
that senior management now considered the institution’s web staff rather than paying outside companies, so that we have
presence to be more important than they did five years ago – the flexibility to do things the way we want
although this on its own of course does not translate to greater
Better results due to commitment of in-house staff and
provision or support for web development, as we have already
better control
seen.
Others had negative experiences of working with external
4.2.6 Attitudes to outsourcing
consultants in the past, particularly in terms of the reliability of
4.2.6.1 Keep it in-house, or adopt a mixed model approach? companies and the risk of being left without the appropriate
Survey results and interview comments about attitudes to support. While recognising the potential value of outsourcing,
outsourcing in HEI web management provide some interesting some were wary of using consultants for major aspects of the
insights not only into the structure and functioning of web web team’s work:
teams but also into the political aspects of outsourcing.
We’ve been bitten, actually, quite a few times and the web
Figure 14 – Thinking about the prevailing attitude towards team are now mopping up the bites. We can understand
outsourcing at your institution, which of the following statements do why smaller departments did go out and pay for a company
you agree with most?
to develop them a website. They wrote it in PHP or
There is a preference something that our web server doesn’t support; they host
for in-house website
development and elsewhere and the company goes bust. And we’re now
maintenance over
outsourcing
stuck with a website that they can’t get at and we’ve got to
There is a preference
for a combination of do it again from scratch. And to think, this year we’ve had
outsourcing and in-
house development three of those... I mean we’re certainly not as…I think a few
and maintenance
years ago it was very much “We won’t touch anything that’s
There is a preference
for outsourcing over an off-campus widget or investigate anything that’s groovy
in-house development
and maintenance and web 2.0 and this, that and the other”. And we’ve really
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% thrown that up in the air now and go “What are you trying
to achieve? How can we achieve it? We’ll achieve it as it
To begin with, survey respondents suggested that there is a
needs achievement”; and you know, risk assess anything
general preference for in-house web development and
around anything that might host off-campus. So, but yes,
maintenance over outsourcing. However, a large proportion

certainly server-wise and support wise we want everything institutional knowledge and we help make sure outsourcing
back on campus now. delivers what the organisation requires.
4.2.6.2 Understanding the HEI landscape Core web presence best maintained by a permanent team
Understanding the nature of working in the context of Higher with a good understanding of the institution, but
Education was also an important issue raised by participants. It outsourcing very useful for projects with short timescale or
was suggested that consultants may lack the kind of in-depth, shelf life.
internal knowledge necessary to carry out web development
From the other side of this relationship, a web development
and management in a way that marries the aims and objectives
consultant provided another perspective on the issue of
of the web team with the broader, diffuse interests of the
outsourcing. In his experience there was no inherent reluctance
institution as a whole. As one interview participant suggested:
on the part of web teams to work with consultants, but instead
I think, culturally, universities are like no other institution. a desire to balance outsourced work with in-house control. This
I’ve worked here for [over ten] years now in various guises in part related to the costs incurred with outsourcing. As this
and I know the institution inside-out and that is incredibly participant explained:
important… If you don’t know the institution, you don’t
I think a lot of organisations want to be able to do stuff
know the culture; don’t know the personalities that you’re
internally, certainly, because they have got the resources to
dealing with. That just won’t work. So, I think, yeah,
do it; they have got people internally who organise it. At
because universities are just so big and you need to know
least the more major universities have, I mean it does vary.
how it all fits together to get a successful web presence I
We do some work with smaller colleges etc and they don’t
think.
have those internal resources, so we don’t tend to get, from
4.2.6.3 Balancing resources and drawing on expertise our own perspective, a lot of repeat business from HE
However, others pointed to the more pragmatic benefits of
institutions compared to the other sectors that we work in
outsourcing certain aspects of web management and design. In
because they bring stuff in house …certainly my experience
some institutions, it was simply a matter of not having either the
currently at the minute with me trying to do what I am
staff or the expertise to effectively complete certain projects. In
trying to do, I have faced a reluctance to spend the money.
these cases, for instance, respondents saw a coupling of internal
The reluctance to spend the money may just be a financial
‘cultural’ knowledge with external technical knowledge as the
one rather than not wanting to outsource any of this work; I
best option: don’t get the feeling that that’s the idea within the
University.
Unique understanding of institutions needs from internal
staff coupled with technical expertise of external contractors 4.2.6.4 Influence of external consultants at a strategic level:
‘neutral’ third parties?
Others made similar comments about the usefulness of In terms of the influence of external consultants at a
outsourcing: management level, 46 per cent of survey respondents suggested
that outsourced specialists had been used to inform web
Limited resources in-house mean that we are over stretched
strategy. A further 38 per cent said that external consultants had
and can't support all the applications we develop. It is often
not been involved at a management level in their institution.
more cost effective to get others to do it for us.
There is now a recognition that we have limited resources

and where it is more appropriate and cost effective to
outsource we outsource. The web team are still involved
when outsourcing so projects benefit from their detailed

Figure 15 – Has your institution ever used external consultants to We had third party consultancy for the redesign and that
inform its web strategy at a management level? worked very well and assisted the joke story that someone
who’s getting paid to do this from outside must be better
than folk we’ve got! We don’t mind that in this team. It’s
Yes
time again, when the consultant comes in and says exactly
what we’ve been saying for the past 18 months. So we’re
big fans of that approach… I think we’ve just kind of
accepted that that’s just life. One of the interesting things is
No
if you’re canny at what you ask the consultant to do, and
the consultant leaves you with information architecture, or
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% leaves you a design guide then for a long time after they’ve
been in you can refer back to that and say, ‘Yes, but the
Where consultants had been involved at a strategic level, they plan was this. You agreed the plan; we’re following the
were reported to have been engaged in reviews of web design, plan’. And that’s quite a strong on-going message.
marketing and branding, and in reviews and evaluations of web
We don’t normally out-source but in this case we did to
strategy more generally. In the consultation interviews the issue
[name of company] but that was more of a political
of outsourcing raised some interesting questions about the
decision than anything else. We were putting the
political role of external consultants in negotiating particular
homepages and the central pages…it was just such a highly
approaches to web management in HEIs. A number of
political issue that I knew that we would never get
participants pointed to the fact that, as third parties, consultants
agreement for anything my team produced because we are
were often considered to be removed from the political aspect
political actors as much as anybody else in the institution.
of the relationships between web teams, marketing, senior
So I knew that we would need a third party; people from
management and other departments within a particular
outside that would make criticisms that would be accepted
institution. Acting from this ‘impartial’ standpoint, external
and would take any criticism that they could make on the
consultants were therefore able to gain more effectively the
chin, any criticisms that were aimed at their design. If my
trust and confidence of other stakeholders and have influence
team had produced the designs then no one would have
in developing a certain course of action. Interview participants
signed up for it because that’s how institutions work…with
described how this political aspect of outsourcing could work to
[name of company] in there as an intermediary, it’s worked
advance web team aims and objectives – if consultants and web
out well.
teams are in agreement about the way forward:
4.2.6.5 Satisfaction with experiences of outsourcing at a

There is definitely greater weight given to expertise and
strategic level
advice if it comes from outside the University. For example, This third party role in decision-making processes, then, is an
with our current web redevelopment project the university added benefit of contracting ‘neutral’ consultants to do work
have deployed a consultancy to run the project, although alongside web teams. Overall, however, the data do not suggest
among the web team we think we have the skills to do it, overwhelming satisfaction with external consultants in the work
but we are aware that there are benefits to a neutral third of web teams.
party coming in and talking to the stakeholders – there are
definitely benefits with the neutrality of the advice. As the
web team, we tell the consultants what we believe to be the
case and they then report it on to the business and the
business accept it because it comes from them.

Figure 16 – How satisfactory did you find the experience of Figure 17 – Have you ever used an external consultancy to inform
outsourcing to an external consultancy? web team activities?
1 – very unsatisfactory
No
2
4
Yes
5 – very satisfactory
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
On a scale of one to five, with five representing ‘very satisfied’ Just under two thirds (61 per cent) of respondents suggested
and one representing ‘not satisfied at all’, only 9 per cent of that external consultants were not used to inform web team
survey respondents scored their experience of outsourcing at activities; among those who did (21 per cent), external
five. A further 22 per cent scored their experience of consultants were employed to conduct similar tasks to those
outsourcing at four, while 29 per cent scored three. At the undertaken at a management level (reviewing branding,
lower end of the scale, 11 per cent of respondents were ‘not advising on design, usability testing, and so on). This smaller
satisfied at all’ with their experience of outsourcing. Again, proportion of institutions employing external consultants at the
those who were satisfied with outsourcing highlighted the level of web team activity appear to be happy with the results of
impartial role of consultants in the political machinery of web outsourcing: 28 per cent agreed that they were ‘very satisfied’
management: the work conducted by external consultants.
A very worthwhile experience – provides an external Figure 18 – How satisfactory did you find the experience of
perspective and perceived credibility. outsourcing to an external consultancy?
Useful to get unbiased external perspective. 1 – very unsatisfactory
Others, however, saw this function as somewhat of a double- 2
edged sword: consultants sometimes merely serve as a way to

3
reconfirm existing perspectives, while in other cases they have
the ability to affect considerable change: 4
Externals consultants often serve mainly to validate internal 5 – very satisfactory
opinions.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
In the worst cases people have paid for consultants to tell

Once again, however, open answers explaining levels of
them the same things the web team told them. In the best
satisfaction seem to point to the political function of consultants
cases, it has inspired all of us to do better.
in the decision-making process, rather than simply to their
4.2.6.6 Experiences with external consultants in web team function as web specialists:
activities
While survey respondents agreed that external consultants were Helped us with credibility for project – external expert views
involved at a strategic level at their institution, the same was not seem to be seen as more reliable and believable!
the case at the level of web team activities.

The web team has a lot of these skills however the message (particularly, in several cases, the combination of Zope and
seems more important when it is supplied by an outside Plone).
body and paid for.
Figure 20 – Is this an open source / proprietary solution?
4.2.6.7 Using external consultants in other areas

While the number of responses suggesting the involvement of
external consultants at the level of web team activity was quite Proprietary
low, just over half of respondents (51 per cent) suggested that
they would use an external consultancy to inform other
activities. Activities in which outsourced specialists might be
used included design (particularly in relation to media-rich Open Source
content), general ‘health checks’ of sites in terms of usability,

branding and so on, and – once again – to help build consensus
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
on decision-making by providing an outside perspective.
These figures also indicate that most HEIs are using proprietary
4.3 Content Management Systems solutions: in a separate question, represented in Figure 20
4.3.1 CMS use – technical aspects above, respondents confirmed that 67 per cent were using
The overwhelming majority of survey respondents (85 per cent) proprietary solutions compared with 23 per cent using an Open
reported using a CMS. Of these, over three quarters (78 per Source CMS (the debate surrounding Open Source and
cent) suggested that the CMS that they used functioned at an proprietary software is discussed in more detail in Section 4.3.6
institutional rather than a departmental (3 per cent) or divisional below).
(4 per cent) level.

As with patterns related to the implementation of web
Figure 19 – At what level is this CMS used? strategies, most current CMS have been put into place within
the last two years. Of those with a CMS currently in place, 22
It is used at an
institutional level per cent claimed that the CMS was first installed in 2008,
compared with 16 per cent in 2007 and 11 per cent in 2006.
Other
For 2009 the figure was somewhat smaller at 8 per cent, while
It is used at a faculty
or divisional level just over 1 per cent of respondents claimed to have first
It is used at a
installed the current CMS before the turn of the century.
departmental level
Figure 21 – When was this first installed?

It is used by central
administration
1998
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 1999

2000
2001
Among those using a CMS the most frequently cited 2002
2003
solution/brand was Terminal 4 (20 per cent), followed by a
2004
range of in-house, bespoke options (13 per cent). Other more 2005
2006
popular choices included Contensis (5 per cent), Plone (5 per
2007
cent) and Red Dot (4 per cent). The remainder of respondents 2008
2009
(45 per cent) used a wide variety of CMS, including Jadu,
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Joomla!, Percussion, Polopoly, Serena, Drupal, Zope, and so
on. A number of respondents suggested that a number of
different CMS were used simultaneously within their institution

While a large proportion of respondents (47 per cent) suggested Another way of presenting this quite complex dataset is to
that they were using the most recent version of their chosen consider the average score (in terms of importance) assigned by
CMS, only a slightly smaller proportion (39 per cent) suggested all respondents to each criterion. These calculations are
that they were not using the latest version. Given common represented in Figure 22 below. This shows clearly the factors
concerns about the level of resources available to web teams in that are deemed to be most important to institutions when
HEI contexts, and about the fact that HEIs sometimes lag choosing a CMS; of which usability (4.3), reliability (4.2) and
behind current trends in the commercial sector, it is perhaps scalability (4.0) score the highest. Of least importance, it would
not too surprising that this is the case. seem are a team’s familiarity with a particular solution or how
popular it may be within a specific department.
While a large number of respondents to the survey (40 per cent)
suggested that only one CMS was in use at their institution, Figure 22 – How important were the following criteria to the choice
more still (49 per cent) reported that one or more additional of CMS that you use?
CMSs were also in use. In most cases it appears that additional Usability for content providers
Reliability of the system
CMSs are in use at a departmental level – a further indication of Scalability of the system
Ability to provide future proofing
the historical legacy of devolved control that web managers Cost of the system
Ease of maintenance
must navigate. Enhance author compliance with regulations/legislation
Ability to integrate with existing systems
Reputation / financial stability of provider
4.3.2 CMS use – decision-making Ability to aggregate information across sites
Quality of external support
In terms of the factors determining the choice of CMS, a Ease / Speed of installation
Compatibility with existing skill sets within web team
number of significant outcomes emerged from the survey Popularity with the department or unit
Previous experience(s) with CMSs
results. On a scale of one to five, with five being ‘very 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0
important’ and one being ‘not important’, 56 per cent of those

with a CMS in place suggested that the usability for content These factors seem to align with earlier findings related to the
providers was very important in their choice of solution. The broader cultural issues that affect web teams in the context of
reliability of the system was also seen to be significant, with 42 HEIs. The desire to balance consistency and autonomy through
per cent agreeing that this was ‘very important’ in the decision- approaches to web strategies and service provision is reflected
making process. The ability to provide future proofing (34 per on one level in the reported significance of ‘usability for content
cent) and scalability (32 per cent) were also considered to be providers’ as a factor when choosing a CMS. Web teams seem
important. In more pragmatic terms, costs were also considered concerned in this sense that the CMS will provide a user-
to be very important by 30 per cent of respondents to this friendly technical solution that will assuage the potentially
question. barbed and complicated politics of encouraging standardisation

among notoriously individualistic and diverse academic
Other factors influencing the choice of CMS included ease of
interests. Aware of the generally disorganised and anarchic
maintenance (with 37 per cent of respondents scoring this at 4
history of web management that they have often inherited, they
out of 5 in terms of importance) and the ability to aggregate
are similarly concerned with finding a solution that will be fit for
information across different areas of the site – (33 per cent).
purpose not only in the short-term, but that will provide scope
Among the factors least significant in the choice of CMS,
and scalability for the rather unpredictable future of the web as
‘previous experiences of CMS’ was considered to be
well.
unimportant by almost a quarter of respondents (24 per cent).
Similarly, 17 per cent of respondents considered the popularity 4.3.2.1 Choosing a CMS – bodies involved
of the solution with departments or units to be unimportant. In terms of the bodies involved in advising on the decision-
making process to select a particular CMS, it is clear from the
data that this responsibility has been shared, in most cases,

between the web manager and web teams, IT and senior that issues of communication and transparency remain
management, with marketing being involved to a lesser extent. important in a number of cases.
Figure 23 – Which of the following bodies advised on the adoption 4.3.2.2 Key selling points
of the CMS that you use? Respondents were asked to assess the key selling points of their
current CMS. Among the free text responses provided, ‘ease of
The web manager/
web team
use’ was mentioned frequently. Examining the responses in
IT detail it is clear that this ‘ease of use’ referred not only to the
initial installation, but also to a more simplified approach to
Senior management
website publishing generally; it was felt that a straightforward
system with accessible code had the benefits of a reduced
Marketing
reliance on technical staff, and allowed a more devolved
Other authorship.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Systems with features that facilitated the creation and
maintenance of university branding and standardisation were
Of those reporting using a CMS, 73 per cent suggested that it
also considered by many to be favourable.
was the web manager and the web team who made the
decision to choose a particular solution, while 62 per cent of A number of participants cited ‘flexibility’ and ‘extensibility’ as
respondents placed this responsibility with IT. Slightly less than key selling points: the chosen system must be compatible with
one third (32 per cent) said that senior management advised on systems already in place and have ‘the ability and flexibility to
the adoption of the current CMS. Slightly less still (30 per cent) customise…into what the institution wants and needs’, while
included marketing in this process. incurring minimum expense. This particularly referred to
‘future-proofing’; a cost-effective system which had scope to be
Interestingly, the same proportions are not represented in
developed and ‘scaled up’ over time was more likely to be
responses about which bodies authorised the adoption of a
purchased than one which was not so adaptable.
particular CMS: not surprisingly, senior management are
recognised as being most important (68 per cent), followed by Other selling points of note concerned the reputation and
the web manager and web team (48 per cent) and IT (42 per stability of the vendor; some reported that recommendations
cent). In 40 per cent of cases, respondents agreed that the from others in the web community being influential in their
decision to choose a particular CMS was in keeping with the choice of CMS.
advice provided by the web team; however, for almost a third
of respondents (31 per cent), this was not the case. It is 4.3.3 CMS use – satisfaction
interesting to note that almost the same number of respondents Figure 24 – To what extent has the current CMS met your
(28 per cent) were not aware of whether or not the advice of requirements?
the web team had been considered. Here again we are

1 - very poorly
reminded of the politically-charged nature of web management,
and of the extent to which mediation and communication (or a 2
lack thereof) emerge as key elements in the process of web

3
development in the context of HEIs. The fact that such a
considerable proportion of web managers and related staff are 4
unaware of the extent to which they have been involved in the

5 very well
process of choosing something as significant as a CMS suggests
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Participants in the survey were asked to consider the extent to A little bit of a learning curve to the administration has
which their current CMS met their requirements. Figure 24, meant some features are not as well used as they should be.
above, shows that in general the respondents were quite
Several respondents also found help and guidance from the
positive about their current CMS, with nearly two-fifths (39 per
vendor to be unsatisfactory; in some cases, the provided help
cent) scoring their CMS four and approximately one-fifth (19
documents were incomplete, or it was felt that there was an
per cent) giving their current solution maximum marks. Only
inadequate amount of after-sales support.
ten per cent of the sample appeared to be dissatisfied with the
system that they had in place, giving their CMS a score of 1or 2 Documentation was lacking in some areas which increased
out of 5. the time for us to understand the system fully.
Respondents were provided with the opportunity to clarify the Appalling customer service; no project management and
score that they gave to their CMS and to offer some justification very poor support from technical team.
for the answers that they had submitted. In total, SIRC received
External documentation and support is patchy at best,
313 unique entries outlining various issues – both positive and
which becomes more of an issue the further you customise
negative – that the respondents had with the systems that they
your system. This is an accepted risk – particularly as it's an
currently used. Attempting to identify patterns is these data,
open source system.
however, is a non-trivial task. With over 40 different named
solutions and 11 ‘in-house’ systems reported to be in use across The requisite for specific knowledge of certain technologies and
the sample finding commonalities between the responses, even systems also meant for some institutions that work could not be
at a general level, is quite difficult. Responses for the most part distributed so widely, disrupting workflow and delaying the
provided quite detailed examples of the ways in which the completion of goals. One respondent explained;
existing systems performed, or failed to perform, in relation to
[The CMS] has lost support because it needs knowledge of
institutionally-specific circumstances. The following two sections
HTML / Dreamweaver to work, hence central provision
consider some of the responses from this section of the survey,
rather than widely devolved. [It is] coming under criticism
but the list is by no means exhaustive.
as not everyone has power to publish to web and
4.3.3.1 Failing to meet requirements bottlenecks result.
Where it seems that the majority of CMSs ‘fell down’ in the
opinion of the respondents was in the amount of training A number of respondents noted finding basic functions (often
required to use the system to its full capabilities, problems stipulated as essential requirements in the original tender) to be
executing basic tasks, and difficulties with keeping the system inflexible, problematic to administer, or simply not forthcoming.
up to date. For one respondent the implementation of their Several contributors reported having specific difficulties with
CMS was reported to be: sharing content, creating links between departments, and
integrating with existing systems.
Quite a steep learning curve for members of the web team
[particularly for those] without strong programming Functionality provided in the product is significantly short of
experience. expectations based on information supplied during

procurement.
This sentiment was one that was shared by many. A failure to
provide the requisite level of training on the CMS could result in Despite being sold as ultra robust, it has had a lot of stability
the full potential of the system not being realised. One issues, and being proprietary, is very difficult to debug.
respondent noted: Because we've heavily customised it, it’s much more difficult
for the supplier to support it, which rather defeats the
objective of buying from suppliers.

Various comments did however indicate that once certain skills Figure 25 – Are you / others considering changing the CMS that you
had been mastered, satisfaction with the CMS increased: currently use?
Initially we found it very inflexible but since our knowledge

of how it works has increased, we've managed to overcome No
many of the difficulties we encountered to begin with.
Other ways in which CMSs failed to meet with requirements

centred on the inability of the system to ‘keep up with rapidity
Yes
of changes in the web environment’. Several inferred that
although their system had initially succeeded in providing the
required functionalities the changing nature of technology and 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
growing expectations of the web team had made the level of

Among survey respondents who reported already using a CMS,
satisfaction difficult to sustain.
approximately a quarter (26 per cent) claimed to be considering
[The CMS]…met them well initially, but the system is getting changing the current CMS. The majority (63 per cent), however,
old and user expectations have grown a lot. suggested that neither they nor others in their institution were
considering this course of action.
To be fair it met our expectations up to this date as we
commissioned the functionality we needed. However, we've 4.3.4.2 Factors leading to change of CMS
outgrown it now and are looking to replace it. Figure 26 – Which of the following factors has / have led you / your
institution to consider replacing the existing CMS / obtaining a new
4.3.3.2 Strengths CMS?
Free responses about the main strengths of CMSs currently
Technological limitations of existing CMS
being used provided further detail about the particular Changing institutional requirements
attributes that participants found to be important. Among these, Editor requirements
Target audience requirements

‘usability’(‘ease of use’), ‘scalability’ and ‘flexibility’ were terms Other (please specify)
Increasing workload
that came up on multiple occasions, as already suggested. To a
Current system not being developed/supported
lesser extent, issues to do with maintaining ‘consistency’ and Changing skill sets of webteam
External advice
‘control of design’ were also mentioned.
Changing size of institution
Increase/decrease in funding levels

In many respects the particular strengths listed by the Price / ongoing cost
respondents relate to the same sets of criteria listed in the 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
previous section by those less satisfied with their chosen or

Of those who were considering a change, the most important
inherited CMS.
reason for deciding to implement a new CMS was the
4.3.4 CMS use – change technological limitations of the existing system.
4.3.4.1 Considering change of CMS This ties in closely to some of the key issues raised in the
sections of the survey related to the decision-making process for
procuring new CMS, in terms of choosing a CMS that is scalable
and flexible to potential future demands. (This is perhaps most
easily understood in relation to new demands for increasingly
user-friendly systems and media-rich sites that incorporate web
2.0 functions – as discussed in more detail below). A participant

from the consultation interviews also made a similar point about We need to integrate more content suitable to the YouTube
the technical short-comings of the existing CMS, and the need generation (e.g. user generated content, blogs etc) and our
for change: current CMS cannot offer this.
The system that we have got is not particularly usable. It Content providers have become more "Web-savvy" and have
hasn’t got a great interface and it is also extremely slow at much greater requirement to specify structure/presentation
doing certain tasks… We get our CMS out of the box and of end Web pages and to directly edit content themselves
there is no way that it will cope with what it is we are trying
…adding video, adding slideshow facility to news items,
to push it to do. That is one of the reasons why it is starting
sending out newsletters. All these were added to the CMS
to break now – because we have been far too demanding
functionality as we required them.
on it.
Implicit in issues about creating a more user-friendly, media-
While slightly less than two thirds of respondents (64 per cent)
rich environment online is the fact that on a fundamental level
highlighted technical limitations as a reason for change in this
the web has become a more important part of university life –
sense, a further 48 per cent cited ‘changing institutional
from online student records, to course content, to recruitment
requirements’ as another factor for consideration. Another
and marketing. This increased intensity and diversity of usage
major justification for considering a change of CMS were the
inevitably reflects considerable shifts in the institutional
changing requirements of web editors (44 per cent). Shifts in
requirements of particular HEIs, but the extent to which
the requirements of target audiences were also cited by a
institutional requirements have changed relative to the
considerable number of respondents as a reason for change (35
implementation of the most recent CMS is also linked in
per cent). In slightly more than a quarter of cases (26 per cent),
important ways to the time at which the current CMS was put
a lack of continued support and/or development for the existing
into use. Given the relatively short timescale reflected in the
CMS was also highlighted as a reason for change.
survey results above describing when current CMSs were
In keeping with the answers given to the questions above, implemented (i.e. mostly in the past two years), it would seem
slightly more than half of the respondents (56 per cent) were in that many institutions already have in place a system that can at
agreement that the requirements of their institution had not least partially cope with new demands and institutional
changed since the implementation of the last CMS. However, requirements. This in part would seem to explain the relatively
(and also in keeping with responses about reasons for changing small number of participants registering a change of CMS.
CMS) almost a third (30 per cent) suggest that institutional
4.3.5 CMS – non-use
requirements have changed. When asked to provide open
responses explaining what these changing institutional As already mentioned in Section 4.3.1, the overwhelming
requirements might be, again, the need to move beyond majority of respondents to the survey (85 per cent) reported
existing technological limitations was of primary concern – not using a CMS. The remaining 15 per cent who did not use a
only in terms of web content, but also in terms of dealing with CMS were routed to another section of the questionnaire and
an increasing amount of traffic and increasingly web-savvy were asked a series of questions relating to their ‘non-use’.
content providers. Respondents made comments to this effect: Results from this section of the survey are discussed in brief
below, but it is worth noting that the sample size of non-users is
…existing CMS is old school, is missing newer functionality.
relatively small (n=17). Data presented in this section should,
People are demanding something more user-friendly that
therefore, be considered with this caveat in mind.
allows more people to publish content.
4.3.5.1 Reasons for non-use
Respondents who reported that they were not currently using a
CMS had a number of different responses to explain the reasons

for non-use. In many cases, this was not a matter of a conscious (56 per cent) agreed that the scalability of a new system was
decision not to use a CMS, but instead reflected issues to do very important, while an equal number suggested that the
with institutional logistics and bureaucracy, cost or the changing ability of the new CMS to integrate with existing systems would
scale current of web use. Indeed, many respondents mentioned be very important. In keeping with these responses, 56 per cent
that they were either in the process of or near to implementing of respondents also considered the ability of the CMS to
a CMS in their institution (again, this fits with the generally short provide future-proofing as an important factor, ranking this
historical timescale for CMS implementation seen earlier). As option at four out of five.
one participant commented,
The data indicate, then, that many respondents who are
Have been trying to get a uni-wide CMS for the last...8 1/2 currently not using a CMS will be using one in the near future,
years. We are now close to deploying one for the core site, and that the primary reason for doing so will be to move
and if all goes well this will be rolled out to the rest of the beyond the technological limitations of the existing system and
University in the next 1-2 years. secure a reliable and scalable alternative for the future.
4.3.5.2 Others in HEI using CMS? 4.3.5.4 How is content edited?

Respondents also suggested that while they did not use a CMS In the meantime, however, how will these respondents
personally, they were aware of a CMS being used at some level continue to manage the web content without a CMS? Open
within their institution. More than half of respondents to this responses to this question included the simple and self-
section of the survey (54 per cent) suggested that a CMS was explanatory ‘by hand’ as an answer to how current web editing
being used elsewhere, while 31 per cent said that no CMS was took place. Dreamweaver and Contribute were among the
in place at any level (a further 15 per cent did not know). The software packages that respondents mentioned as the tools by
vast majority of respondents (77 per cent), however, agreed that which this ‘by-hand’ approach to content management was
their institution was considering implementing a CMS. Among carried out. While for many this approach was no longer viable
the reasons for doing so, the technological limitations of the given the increasing intensity and diversity of web use within
existing system of content management were once again cited their institution, in some cases a ‘by hand’ approach seemed to
as a major cause for concern by a large proportion of be appropriate to the scale of web use within the HEI. Other
respondents (89 per cent). As with respondents’ reasons for advantages to not having a CMS were also highlighted.
changing CMS, changing institutional requirements (67 per
4.3.5.5 Advantages to not having a CMS
cent) and the changing requirements of editors (78 per cent)
Not having a CMS, for example, was also seen as a way of
were also concerns for those not yet using a CMS. Perhaps not
cutting costs considerably – an issue of some importance in web
surprisingly, the increasing workload involved in web
teams with very limited resources. Others argued that CMSs are
management was also cited by many as a reason for
too inflexible and are often underused within institutions. In
implementing a CMS (78 per cent).
response to why his/her institution did not use a CMS, one
4.3.5.3 Factors influencing future CMS choice for current non- participant in particular suggested that ‘technology is not the
users solution to staff apathy’ making the (somewhat laconic) point
When asked about the potential factors that would influence
that the implementation of a CMS does not on its own solve the
their choice of CMS, 100 per cent of respondents to the
more entrenched cultural issues facing web content managers.
question highlighted the reliability of the system as being ‘very
important’ (on a scale of one to five, with five representing ‘very 4.3.5.6 Disadvantages to not having a CMS
important’ and one representing ‘not important’). An equal For the most part, however, respondents highlighted the
proportion of respondents (78 per cent respectively) agreed that drawbacks of not implementing a CMS over the benefits of
usability for content providers and ease of maintenance would non-usage. Not surprisingly, an inability to manage the
also be very important in their choice of CMS. More than half consistency of web content, and struggling to manage an

increasingly large amount of web content, were highlighted as representing ‘very poorly’, a third (33 per cent) of Open Source
key disadvantages to not having a CMS in place. users scored their CMS at five, compared to 17 per cent of
proprietary users. A similar proportion of both proprietary and
4.3.6 Open Source vs. Proprietary
Open source users scored their CMS at four on this scale (41
When asked about institutional preferences between Open per cent and 48 per cent respectively), but proprietary users
Source and Proprietary software, a large proportion of were more likely than Open Source users to score their CMS at
respondents (44 per cent) suggested that there was no intrinsic the lower end of the scale.
institutional preference either way. At the same time there were
Figure 28 –To what extent has the current CMS met your
twice as many more respondents who suggested an institutional
requirements by system type?
preference for proprietary software (33 per cent) than for Open
Source options (16 per cent). 1 - very poorly
Open Source
Proprietary
Figure 27 – Does your institution have a preference for Open Source 2
or proprietary software?
3
It has no preference
either way 4
5 very well
Proprietary software
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Of those who expressed an institutional preference for Open

Open Source software
Source software, 50 per cent of respondents agreed that
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% marketing teams, IT specialists and senior management have
different outlooks with regards to Open Source and proprietary
For those suggesting that there was an institutional preference software. Among the open response answers to the question of
for either Open Source or proprietary solutions, slightly more what these differences might be, some suggested that senior
than half of respondents highlighted the capacity for technical management and marketing may prefer Open Source options
development as the most important factor underpinning because of cost and the ability to manage solutions in-house,
institutional choice, followed by cost (52 per cent). Perhaps not while IT may focus on functionality (while at the same time
surprisingly, cost was a particular issue for those who expressed raising concerns about the level of support that Open Source
a preference for Open Source solutions, with 94 per cent options entail). Among those preferring a proprietary option,
suggesting cost as a major factor. The availability of external respondents suggested that they thought senior management to
support, in turn, was a major factor for a large proportion of be cautious of Open Source options because they are
those preferring proprietary options (67 per cent). unsupported and therefore ‘high risk’. IT, on the other hand,
was seen to prefer Open Source options. As one participant put
With these responses in mind, it is also interesting to note the
it:
differences between Open Source and proprietary users in
terms of the extent to which current CMSs have met Senior management tend to prefer something they've spent
requirements. While both Open Source and proprietary users money on; developers prefer something they can develop
are generally positive about their CMS, Open Source users were with...
much more likely to agree that their current CMS met their
IT specialists are more comfortable with it because they
requirements ‘very well’. On a scale of one to five, with five
understand the theory and the programming behind it.
representing meeting requirements ‘very well’ and one

Marketing and Senior Management probably assume that it can do or you pay someone else to do it for you. You get
is necessary to pay a lot of money for something because expert consultancies that have done it thousands of times
that is the only way you'll get a good product! before with a particular CMS. I know that is the case with
some of the php CMS frameworks such as Drupal and
4.3.6.1 ‘Software agnostics’?
Plone.
Beyond the broader generalisations provided by survey
respondents, comments from the consultation interviews also In a similar sentiment, one participant described his approach
allowed for more detailed insights into the issues surrounding to the Open Source/proprietary choice in terms of being
the ‘Open Source versus proprietary’ debate. Perhaps the most ‘supplier agnostic’:
important issue raised by interviewees was the fact that the
My feeling here is that we’re supplier agnostic, we’re happy
‘Open Source/proprietary’ dichotomy itself is to an extent
if they meet the requirements at the various points we’ve
forced and artificial:
set. We’ve got a swathe of Microsoft software. We’ve got
Well I don’t really know why anybody really makes that Java kicking about, we’ve got some Apache, a mix of
distinction. It’s just a question of licensing. There are off-the- everything. I think in some departments at a desktop level
shelf systems, some you pay for and some you don’t. I spent there’s definitely a strong anti-Microsoft lean. Whether
years making this point that that’s a false distinction. It’s just that’s pro-Apple in terms of the perceived users’ use or
the difference between whether, you know, Open Office is whether that’s one of the more peculiar desktop and
an off-the-shelf software which nobody questions, and it software combinations I’ve had departments run. But the
happens to have a licence that’s free. And there are a lot of majority go for Microsoft for ease of use and certainly cost.
commercial things that you have to spend an awful amount Cost is minimal here because there’s a substantial campus
of time and effort into how to maintain it. agreement.
Other participants pointed out that while generally speaking it Another participant appeared to agree with this perspective:
has been assumed that there is a historical, ideological
Ultimately we just went with what other people in the
preference towards Open Source options among people
sector were using so that we could approach how much
working in web development and IT, in the present web
development we would have to do in-house. And we found
developers may be simply more interested in what works for a
that we would really have to sit people down and
particular project than in the ideological questions of whether
completely skill them up with Joomla!; it just seemed far too
or not to use particular commercial or Open Source options:
onerous for us so its not like we are anti Open Source, far
In the wider IT directorate, as it’s called here, the culture is from it, I mean as I said the management were very
very much Open Source historically, but it’s not anymore pro…we just ended up going commercial just for the speed
and I and my colleague, the senior web developer here… that we could end up doing it.
we will end up using whatever gets the job done quickest,
4.3.6.2 Preference for Open Source solutions
so we are holding to Open Source in a way; anything to
Others, however, were more explicit about their preference for
make life easier! I don’t feel any preference. Perhaps I
Open Source rather than proprietary solutions. While
would have in the past but now I feel I am getting too old!
recognising the particular benefits of having a large, dedicated
I don’t think that it is a matter of proprietary versus Open web team, one consultee remarked on the positive aspects of
Source. It is much more about functionality for us. With having an Open Source CMS:
Open Source products you can go down one of two roads:
Yeah, I think we were lucky enough to have the team here. I
either you install it, support and develop it yourselves which
mean, I think from conversations that I’ve had with other
obviously has a serious impact on what else your Web Team
people I think CMSs are quite limited in functionality and I

think by actually purchasing a system you find that it house to be able to do everything with an Open Source
doesn’t offer some of the functionality that you’d want. I’d system – creating our own widgets and applications we
be loathe to buy into a system that kind of locked you down would almost certainly have to hire contractors in and they
and prevented you from developing. We did have the luxury are not cheap. Perhaps, £300-400 per day for a decent
of having the staff who could develop it but I think I want to contractor.
go down the Open Source route because it gives you more
All you are going to get with an Open Source solution is a
freedom.
base system. You are not going to be able to do much other
For some participants Open Source systems were also than put content into a box and then publish it. If you need
perceived to offer benefits in terms of data security and data everything that we want it to do it just won’t do it…you
and content quality. would end up spending a fortune on programmers who
would need to come in… We have bought heavily into
Well we take it for granted – probably the majority of us in
Microsoft during [a recent] infrastructure project – so we are
this department – take it for granted that Open Source is
massively tied into Microsoft so all of our in-house skills are
the way to go because it’s our job to care about quality and
basically on a Microsoft base.
about security and things like that; and how to have long
term aims about data preservation. So, you know, if you say Here, then, we have evidence that the debate over Open
for instance that the chances are that your Open Source Source versus proprietary software is certainly still alive within
implementation is likely to be more secure because you can the web management community, with some participants
see how it’s working; that, because it’s not trying to tie you taking strong stands in favour of one or the other option,
in it’s got a lot of better commitment to standards for data particularly in relation to CMS. Most, however, seem to take a
and text then it’s a given in this environment that this is a much more pragmatic approach, adopting either Open Source
good thing. I mean we make a lot of use of Open Source. or proprietary solutions (or aspects of both) when this suits the
We have a big commitment to it. various demands – in terms of cost, management, development,
and so on – of the project in question. Assumptions about an
4.3.6.3 Preference for proprietary solutions
industry preference for Open Source solutions, in particular,
On the other hand, those siding with proprietary options gave a
appear to be unfounded within the data.
number of reasons for their preference, including reliability of
product and support, ‘quantifiable’ overall costs (including
4.4 End Users
system and training issues), and the ability of proprietary
4.4.1 User experience / user behaviour
solutions to deal with new and emerging technological
demands: The majority of those involved in the consultations reported
monitoring user experience or user behaviour in some way. A
I mean the reasons for going with an enterprise level
similar pattern also emerged from the survey data. Figure 29
proprietary system rather than an Open Source is mainly
below shows that over four-fifths (82 per cent) monitor user
one of support and also reliability. There are other
behaviour or experience compared with 13 per cent who do
implications, certainly with the recession that we are
not.
currently experiencing we need to be absolutely sure that
the company that we went with was financially stable and
you’re not going to be able to find any manufacturers of
open source software that are going to be able to offer that
level of reassurance. [Open Source] is not as cheap as you
think actually. When view the whole picture, you need...I
mean it is very unlikely that you will have all the skills in

Figure 29 – Are you monitoring user-experience or user-behaviour in There was also some indication, however, that the monitoring
any way? of user experience and behaviour was not necessarily consistent
across the institution:
Yes We track clients using Google Analytics and [name of]

product. This is used well in some sections and not well in
others.
Another contributor, echoing some of the sentiments expressed

No
in the consultations, made the salient point that although user-
experience/user-behaviour monitoring was conducted at their
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% institution, it was done so in a rather ‘ad hoc way’ and that
crucially such processes were not integrated into to the web
From the consultations it was clear that three main methods
strategy.
were employed in this context; Analytics/site stats; user/usability
testing; and student surveys. These ‘options’ were presented to The level and sophistication of user monitoring also varied
the survey respondents. All of those who reported monitoring between the interviewees involved in the consultations. While
user-behaviour or user-experience said that they did so by some reported a reliance on basic web stats others used this
employing analytics or web stats. Just over 70 per cent conduct ubiquitous method in conjunction with other more or less
user/usability testing and over a half (52 per cent) reported the sophisticated and bespoke tools:
use of student surveys.

We use a testing product called [name of product] where
Figure 30 – Methods used to monitor user experience / user we monitor… it kind of does heat maps over where we’re
behaviour people are clicking so we can monitor the most used things
within the page. We’re currently rolling out a Beta version of
Analytics / web stats
our new research website and within that we’ve got
feedback sections within the page so that people can
User / usability testing
actually tell us what they think they’d like or expect to see
there or what they don’t like about a particular experience.
Student surveys
And, obviously, looking at our website statistics using
Google Analytics to see how people interact, when they
Other
drop off and the kind of content that they’re interested in.
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

So when the term starts again in September the web team
are going to have a stand at Fresher’s [events] and try and
Survey respondents were given the opportunity to provide
recruit some brand new students so they can remember
further comments on the issue of user monitoring and any
what it was like to look [at].
additional methods that they employed in this regard. A wide
range of methods were reported which varied in terms of both 4.4.1.1 Views on adequacy of monitoring
sophistication and the level at which they operated; some used Despite the range of different monitoring techniques being used
focus groups; others provided user ‘feedback mechanisms’, the majority of consultees, and also the majority of those
such as ‘rate this page’ functionality; others had used eye surveyed, were of the opinion that user behaviour is not
tracking technologies; while others still reported quite rigorous monitored comprehensively enough. Figure 31 below shows
usability testing and evaluations of new content and/or designs. that respondents to the survey who were of the opinion that
user-experience monitoring was comprehensive enough (8 per

cent) were out numbered by those that did not (82 per cent) by That’s one thing that I must admit we are not too hot on,
a factor of ten to one. but unless you have got a massive team it is almost
impossible to cover absolutely everything.
Figure 31 – Do you think the extent to which user-experience is
monitored is adequate / comprehensive enough? According to both the survey respondent and the consultees it
would appear that methods of evaluating user experience or
user behaviour are increasingly being ‘built-in’ to specific web
No
projects; although having budget allocated did not, as it
transpired, necessarily guarantee that monitoring would actually
take place. The indication here is that the user monitoring is not
being given the level of priority that perhaps it should be.
Yes
It’s something that we’re very interested in doing. It was

something that we had in the budget before they redesigned
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
it. Elements of it were cut out, as you might expect.
For those working in web content management a commitment

While securing the political will and the resources to monitor
to monitoring user behaviour and experience was seen as an
user experience and behaviour was one thing, accepting and
essential tool to encourage and promote an institutional
acting on the findings of this level of evaluation was another:
acceptance of a user-focused agenda.
Painfully [sic] we should be doing more but the difficulty is
The whole issue of usability has not been on the radar
a) getting consensus to do it at all, and b) making people
enough and that is something that we would definitely like
understand the consequences of what they are finding. We
to push – making sure that the University is focused on the
did [an analysis of site statistics] on our [named section of
principles of user-centred design.
the site] and discovered that 90 per cent of the content is
One participant made it clear that the importance attributed to rarely looked at, so I said to [named department] that
the web by individuals in academic departments was not people aren’t looking at [the content] and it’s either
thought to correlate with the amount of time and resources irrelevant or badly structured; they were like, ‘yeah yeah
spent maintaining their websites. This is highly relevant to the okay whatever; we are going to leave it anyway’. It’s just
some kind of denial, they don’t really accept that this can
concern that, despite the attempts to increase awareness
be the case and they just continue doing the thing that they
browser maximisation of the web when training staff, quality of
have been doing.
user experience is often sacrificed. This is shown by the fact
that little, if any, resources are allocated to the investigation of For some of those managing web content in HEIs, usability and
public utility and provisions of websites. Indeed, impressions of user behaviour testing was perceived to have the potential to
these aspects are often informed by assumption. extend the ‘evidence base’; particularly useful when one
needed facts and figures to support a particular opinion or
We don’t do enough and I would say that most universities
campaign for change.:
would own up that they don’t do enough.
In the corporate world there is probably less of a debate

Time, money and staffing levels were all reported as significant
about everything – a senior manager says 'here's the
obstacles to a more systematic approach to the monitoring of
evidence, change this' and you get on and do it. This is far
user experience or user behaviour.
less easy in a university (though having evidence to back up
your plans is very helpful)!

Some consultees reported having used external consultants to Respondents to the survey were asked to consider the
evaluate user experience and behaviour. As we have seen in importance of different audiences; these were ranked on a
Section 4.2.6, while outsourcing was perceived to have certain scale of one to five, with one being ‘not important’ and five
pitfalls, informed opinion from outside of the institution did being ‘very important’. Figure 32 above shows the average rank
have its value. As one rather self-effacing consultee remarked: given to each audience sector. Consistent with comments
provided by the consultees, prospective students from overseas
I have read all the research and I know you shouldn’t do it
were perceived to be the most important audience for HE
but there is a terrible tendency with web managers and
websites, scoring an average rating of 4.73 out of 5. Only
professionals to think, ‘I know the best way to do things’
marginally less important, scoring an average of 4.68, were
and this conclusively proved to me that that this was not the
prospective students ‘at home’, followed by alumni averaging a
case! The value of doing that kind of thing [outsourcing to
score of 3.71 out of 5. The most important audiences,
test user-experience] is enormous.
therefore, were perceived to be potential future students and
4.4.2 Audiences alumni; interestingly these appeared to be a greater priority

than the current student body.
4.4.2.1 Range and diversity
Throughout the consultations and in various free text sections of The commercial focus of HE sites is also reflected in the
the survey frequent references were made to the way in which importance attributed to business / business partners (3.53) in
the audiences for academic sites differed from other, for want comparison with academic staff (3.27) and other institutions/
of a better phrase, more commercially-oriented organisations. research organisations (3.16). The increasingly commercial focus
What was felt to be particularly unique about the HE sector was of HEIs was a theme that was recurrent in the discussions held
the range and breadth of the audience to whose needs and with those responsible for the management of web content.
expectations the university websites were required to cater:
The shift to the commercial is one of the big trends. You
We did an exercise and I think we came up with something look at the big recent redesigns and they are all focused on
like 32 audiences for the website, which is quite scary! student recruitment. With [named institution] in particular
there is a strategy to increase the amount of revenue from
A total of thirty different audience groups for the website
student fees, particularly from international students
have been identified. These include over 2,000 international
because they pay three times as much as domestic students.
students, part-time students, employers, businesses, alumni,
the media, the public and different regional audiences. Prioritising the recruitment of overseas students, however, is not
without its challenges; perhaps most notable of which is the
4.4.2.2 Perceived importance
provision of multilingual content. If, as one contributor
Figure 32 – How important do you think each of following audiences
of the website are perceived to be at your institution? suggested, institutions were already struggling to maintain their
content, provisioning for a multitude of different languages
Pros pective s tudents overs eas
Pros pective s tudents at ‘home’

could serve to exacerbate existing problems:
Alumni
Recruitment of overseas students is categorically one of the
Current s tudent body
B us ines s es / bus ines s partners target aims. We don’t do any wholesale multilingual
Academic s taff provision. We’ve set up the CMS ready to accept character
Other ins titutions / res earch organis ations
sets from a number of different languages. We look at the
General public
stats to try and work out which countries are looking at
Government
S uppliers which content, and then we can – even if it’s still in the
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 English language – we can count the affirmation towards
those nations or pull out the points that are of interest to

those nations. A couple of departments have tried with a everything there, then it basically boils down to the ‘general
multilingual but I suppose the underlying issue is if you have public’. It has got every type of conceivable user on it, all
trouble maintaining your English language content what equally weighted; that’s useless. So we try and get them to
hope have you got of maintaining multilingual content? prioritise three target audiences and work out what those
three are hoping to achieve from visiting the web site and
Some universities reported having a recruitment-focused
facilitate those.
institutional presence in other parts of the world, which it was
felt lessened the need for multilingual content on their It is perhaps interesting to note that while some consultees
‘domestic’ site. What was clear from the consultations, reported there being a drive at an institutional level to improve
however, was that the issue of providing at least some content the continuity of the ‘brand’, negotiating the complexities of
in other languages was one that had been raised, if not web content provision in HEIs often benefited from a more
necessarily acted upon, in most of the institutions. Even at this localised approach.
theoretical stage, it appeared to be causing some degree of
What we’re finding is we’re working with smaller and
concern to those working in the sector.
smaller specific sites rather than big blanket.
4.4.2.3 Managing content for a multiplicity of audiences
Crucially there appeared to be an appreciation among the web
Given such a diverse range of audiences, how then do those
content managers of the need to ‘understand’ the audiences.
tasked with managing the content ensure that the content
While that appreciation was evident among the consultees
presented is relevant to the specific audience? One respondent
there was considerable variation, however, in the methods used
suggested that a coherent web strategy was crucial to the
and the extent to which institutions had embarked on this
process:
process.
Well, in a nutshell, it’s [catering of multiple audiences] a
Well we try to tailor the website for our audiences at all
nightmare, really. And I think this is why, more than ever,
times so each area is looked at and we consider the people
we need the web strategy or the web plan.
who would be wanting to access that area. We develop
Given that the consensus is that HEIs have become more personas for all the types of user before we actually start
commercially driven in recent years, one of the significant building a website so we can bear in mind the kind of
challenges for content managers is to instil a sense of information they’d be looking for and tailor the information
commercial ‘nous’ in the content providers across the institution for those people. I mean, for us our most important
This, as one might expect, requires an ideological shift for those audiences are obviously students; undergraduates and post-
more used to working in a ‘traditional’ academic setting. graduates; the international students. And we’re conscious
Getting contributors, particularly from academic departments, to separate them as three distinctive groups. Peers who are
to think more strategically, was not always as straightforward as interested in the research that we do here and want to
one might imagine: follow up on that; the media; the local community; the
wider, national community through the impact our research
[Academics/departments] generally do not know what they
has; and people interested in jobs and wanting to come and
want to achieve [with their web presence]; we spend a lot
work here.
of time going through, establishing business objectives and
how those objectives are going to be measured. As far as Compartmentalising specific areas of an institution’s web
target audiences are concerned, oh yes, they know exactly presence and thinking strategically about the audiences was a
what that is in great details but it usually consists of several method which appeared to be favoured by many of the
pages of A4 and an organised structure of some description, consultees. There was a recognition that only by identifying and
broken down in immense detail, but if you actually look at catering for the ‘market segments’ could content be structured

to meet effectively the needs and requirements of the envisioned for the next five years, while 66 per cent foresaw a
audiences: ‘greater provision of technologies associated with ‘Web 2.0’. A
similar number of respondents (65 per cent) anticipated the
We have to understand our customer an awful lot more and
‘shift towards user-led, personalised websites’. A concurrent
that involves going out there and finding out who are the
theme emerging in the consultation interviews – and one which
different market segments that we are needing to build the
was held in tension with other trends – was the need to reduce
website around. The page for undergraduate students, full
and consolidate web content through more structured
time and part time, may be entirely different in terms of lay
approaches to web management. A substantial number of
out and appeal, to postgraduates and that will be entirely
respondents (43 per cent) also predicted the rising influence of
different to research; it will certainly be different for alumni
marketing on web content as institutions continue to use the
and for the media and events side of things. And business as
web as a means of maintaining their position in the increasingly
well; there’s business links that the university which will
competitive, marketised arena of Higher Education.
want to try and engage with, for the innovation side of that.
There’s not going to be a one size fits all in all of this. 4.5.1.1 A future in ‘Web 2.0’?
On the subject of technologies captured broadly under the
4.5 The future banner of ‘Web 2.0’ (a term, which, of course, is itself
4.5.1 Future developments contested), respondents provided some valuable insights into
current and potential future levels of provision within their
Predicting the future is, of course, a rather difficult undertaking,
institutions.
not least in the mercurial, unpredictable realm of the web.
However, both survey respondents and consultation Figure 34 – Please tick each of the following which apply to your
interviewees were asked to give their opinions on what they institution’s current provisions
thought would be the major challenges and developments

Video material
(e.g. podcasts, Youtube, iTunes U, etc.)
during the next five years. Most provided general responses
Audio material
about future trends, while some gave an indication of how (e.g. podcasts, iTunes U, etc.)
more general trends might manifest in particular HEI contexts. Wikis
Figure 33 – In your opinion which of the following will be the most Blogs
visible trends in web content management over the next 5 years? Social networks In-house
(e.g. Facebook, Bebo, etc.) External service
No provision
Greater richer media provision
Microblogs
Greater provision of technologies associated (e.g. Twitter, Laconica, etc.)
with ‘Web 2.0’
Shift towards user-led, personalised 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
websites
Greater emphasis on Marketing

A large percentage (72 per cent) suggested that their institution
Increased portal use
currently had in-house provisions for video material. A further
Changing personnel of web teams
17 per cent of video content was provided by external services.
Greater resourcing
Slightly more than two-thirds of respondents (69 per cent) said
Other (please specify)
that their institution had in-house provisions for online audio
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
content. In relation to social networking online, 41 per cent of
respondents suggested that their institution had current
Survey respondents set the tone of the discussion by suggesting
provision for this aspect of ‘Web 2.0’, with a further 29 per cent
that the near future will be characterised by a number of
claiming these services to be provided externally. Almost a
connected developments related to the nature of web content.
quarter of institutions (24 per cent) had no provision for social
Among these projected trends, the rise of ‘greater, richer media
networking. Wikis were covered under current ‘Web 2.0’
content’ was something that 73 per cent of respondents

provision in 61 per cent of the institutions surveyed, but again, with the web strategy we’ve got lots of different ones
close to a quarter (26 per cent) had no provision. The featured coming off it and one of the recent is video…and we’re also
aspect of ‘Web 2.0’ with the least amount of current provision trying to gather everything together emphasis for iTunesU
were microblogs, with 30 per cent reporting in-house provision, Account. I don’t think we’ve got enough yet. But that’s our
32 per cent reporting provision through an external service, and big drive at the moment – to sort out our rich media; videos
30 per cent reporting no provision at all. and stuff.
Interview participants provided some more detail about Well we podcast all our lectures; we just kind of sort out the
particular contexts in which different kinds of ‘Web 2.0’ RSS feed for that, which is done through iTunes on the
technology is or will be supported and the challenges related to website; we have video plays…it’s basically a progressive
these technologies. In relation to blogging, one participant download through Flash. That’s on the site. We do have an
provided the following comment: audio – a way of playing just audio feeds but we tend to put
images with them as well in a sort of small Flash movie; but
All that Web 2.0 stuff, I hate that phrase, but if you take
it’s just an audio player. You want something to look at as
blogging as an example, the amount of requests that we
well, don’t you? If there’s some nice pictures that go with it
have had from our internal clients – departments and
of the lecturer or the student talking we’ll do that. We’ve
schools – for a blog has grown exponentially in the last few
been experimenting with streaming media but we think
months. Thinking about all of the issues that spring from
probably progressive downloads are probably the way to go.
offering all the Web 2.0 services, like moderation and all the
Because, you know, we have some trouble with the stream
legal issues that come form that and the support and
breaking up over slow connection and it’s also quite a lot to
training of staff… Just rolling out what you might consider to
suddenly change and do the quality service structure. You-
be quite a simple service is quite complex and involves quite
Tube’s from progressive download so is BBC iPlayer so it
a complex process of development.
seems to be the way to go.
In terms of audio-visual content online, another participant

Social networking also featured in a number of conversations
described the situation at her institution:
with participants:
We do audio podcasts; we’ve been doing that for a number

[Web 2.0] is certainly an area that we are interested in and
of years. We do have news videos; we’ve not had lots and
we are planning to do more with social media. There are
lots of them to date but we are looking at producing a lot
aspects of it that people are pushing more than others. The
more of those. So the new sites that we’re
one that people are always talking about now is Facebook
developing…we’re developing a lot more video content;
and the creative use of it – probably because that is the one
and we’re actually developing some of that within the web
that most people have heard of. That in itself says a lot
team, rather than going through our AV department so we
about the stage that most people are at with these things.
can get a quicker turn around to get content up there. So
We would like to encourage its [Web 2.0] use, good
videos are probably our biggest thing at the moment.
practice and creative use and not to be stupid with it. I
Others made similar comments: think we are trying to take a quite laidback approach to this.
Obviously there will be cases that we may have to step in.
One thing that’s been a big driver to really tart up our
We also will have more responsibility over something that
website, really, is video. And, again, I think people are much
we are hosting than with something that is external. I think
more…I don’t know what the word is. They want more for
our university approach is very much one of trying to
their own website now because they can use these things
encourage good practice.
everywhere all day everyday…we’re going to set up a
university YouTube channel and then we’re going to…along

4.5.1.2 Gaps in current and future provision for ‘Web 2.0’ I think the main trend is a massive cull in that there’s so
While there is an indication here that some provisions have much information, again, because nothing’s ever been
been made for what many respondents consider to be ‘the removed and because it’s not been added strategically… So,
future’ of web management, there are also some considerable I think certainly a trend I would like to see is a big spring
gaps between projected future challenges and levels of clean, and to get rid of the content that was put up five
preparedness for these challenges. Indeed, when asked if their years ago and is still lying around and make sure that what
institutions had a development strategy and sufficient resources we put up is useable and needed.
to keep pace with the above technological changes, 63 per cent
The other area is just to simplify, which is this idea of
of respondents said ‘no’. Only 20 per cent were confident that
hacking out huge amounts of content. There is a brilliant
the appropriate strategies and resources would be available.
book called the ’Laws of Simplicity’ that basically proposes
Figure 35 – Do you have a development strategy and the available three very obvious ways of simplifying anything, including a
resources to spot and keep pace with the above trends?
website. Number one is best and is simply just to remove
content. I think it was Steve Krug who wrote, “Cut your
content in half and then cut your content again”.
No
Institutions really, really need to do that.
4.5.1.4 ‘Web 2.0’ and the end of CMS?

Some participants suggested that a possible means to marrying
Yes an increase in user-led, media-rich content with a reduction in

redundant content and the creation of a more cohesive
approach to web management, would be to allow an increasing
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
amount of institutional web content outside of the central
website. Or, put differently, it is no longer possible to contain
Participants in the consultation made similar comments about
an institution’s web presence within its own pages, and so a lot
the increasing importance of media-rich, user-led content in the
of content that is currently within the remit of a central CMS
future and the ability and/or willingness of their institutions to
may migrate elsewhere online:
move with these trends.
…I think this idea of having a big, verbose website, with all

There are resource issues, obviously. We can’t keep up,
its departmental and school structure and all this immense
technology wise. We haven’t really got the skills, or even the
detail; I think to some degree, is going to go away. The large
personnel to sit there all day knocking up these Widgets,
university website will shrink dramatically and a lot of the
blogs and Wikis and things and connecting to them, etc. It
conversation will start happening outside of the website, in
has caused a hell of a lot more work. But some of the
things like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube, so perhaps
competitors are already doing it and we can’t really afford
the days of a big Content Management System are
to be left behind.
numbered, ultimately; I think the whole nature of it has
4.5.1.3 Culling content: less is more changed.
On a number of occasions participants highlighted the tension
between attempting to provide for an increasingly broad array I think trends will be using more of the Web 2.0
of media-rich, user-led content while at the same time trying to technologies and pulling information into our sites from
cut away unnecessary, irrelevant content and consolidate external sources. But I also think that’s an issue. I think the
approaches to content management. More generally, other provision of your web content kind of is much bigger than
participants confirmed the need to curtail the amount of your website now. You know, you’ve got to be thinking
existing content on websites: about iTunes, YouTube and all these other different sites and

services that are out there. So I think the issue with that, 4.5.1.7 Getting past technology to content and web skills:
pouring cold water on the ‘Web 2.0’ revolution
actually…the whole landscape is changing for web
Others, however, were less optimistic about the extent of
managers and it’s kind of keeping ahead of the game and
change that Web 2.0 technologies might bring in the context of
showing that we’re providing services that people expect
Higher Education. While remaining positive about the potential
and I think that gap’s getting wider and wider the more
uses of ‘Web 2.0’ technologies, one participant emphasised that
things progress.
technological change alone would not solve the issue of poor
4.5.1.5 Monitoring web 2.0 as an aspect of web presence content online. In order for web content and web management
This notion led other participants to highlight the need to to progress, it is still necessary for fundamental issues of content
monitor the web presence of HEIs beyond the boundaries of quality and consistency to be addressed:
their own web pages. The notion of ‘reputation management’,
There are strategies in place, yes, but we’re increasingly
in this sense, was raised as an emerging aspect of managing web
trying to get the message out that we can do all sorts of
content and marketing:
media. We’ve got some very professional people in the
I think reputation management might come, somebody video and audio side. We’ve got some designer guys who
quoted someone saying “Your web presence ain’t your are moving into Flash and other things, so the question is,
website” and I think that’s going to come and hit web teams yes, we can do that, but what’s the point? What are we
because nobody understands the language and the other tying to do? And if it can objectively be met, let’s do it.
places that it could be, so ways of keeping an eye on that Don’t tell me that you want a Podcast but you’ve not
could be interesting. scripted it, you’ve not got a story board and you don’t know
why you’re doing it.
4.5.1.6 Web 2.0 indirectly improving web skills?
Another interesting knock-on effect of the rise of ‘Web 2.0’
First let’s get our basics right; they need to be distributing
technologies mentioned by interview participants was the
correct writing for the web document, how to write for the
notion that people’s web skills – more specifically their ability to
web. I think there is a need for that. Also, on top of that,
write and edit content for the web – have developed
there is a need for … the idea of site personas. What that is,
significantly through the use of user-led platforms such as is the idea that your institution should have a character that
Facebook or YouTube. As a result, academics and students alike it is trying to project online, which should project in terms
may now be far more capable of providing quality content – in of design and copy. So, for example, are you going to be
theory, at least: friendly and upbeat or are you going to be professional and
dower? What is the character of your institution and how
The main advantage to social networking that I can see is
do you project that? Really just to create some consistency
that people are getting more used to the idea that they can
within what is being written; that is one area that I think
write to web pages; and they are getting handier with the
definitely could be worked upon.
whole experience of doing that … if that’s the case, it might
be easier to give people access to editing pages in a way 4.5.1.8 Increased emphasis on marketing…
that wasn’t perfect and wasn’t quite as locked down As suggested above, marketing also emerged as an important –
because their overall skills level has gone up. Now, I don’t indeed a crucial – aspect of the future of web management in
know whether that’s a faint hope because to some extent HEIs. In particular the issue of recruitment was raised.
people who perhaps interact with Facebook don’t really
I think there will be an ever increasing emphasis on HE’s
think of it as a known skill; they don’t really think they’re
recruitment, which has been happening for a while but I
acquiring a skill doing this and so perhaps if you told them
think it will continue to do so.
they had a learned skill they might not actually believe you.
4.5.1.9 …but a lack of focus on current students:

While an ongoing focus on marketing to prospective students over again. The following comments provide an indication of
was seen in this sense as a vital aspect of the financial future of the tone of these kinds of responses:
HEIs, concerns were also raised about the impact that this was
Start again and code it properly
having on the experiences of current students. With so much
focus being placed on the recruitment of future students Start again from scratch with everything! Starting with user
perhaps too little attention is being paid to the needs and research.
aspirations of students doing the important work of studying for
Redevelop and restructure the website from scratch (we
their degrees:
have over two million pages so this is an impossibility)
[there are] fantastic things could be done in that respect to
Scrap it and rebuild it from the ground up in a much more
help people with their daily business, and also, I don’t
coherent, structured, user-friendly fashion, with much better
know, I get the impression a lot of universities don’t really
tools for content providers.
communicate with their current students at a university
level. They only do it at a departmental level so students get Completely bin it and start again!
some really coordinated communications before they arrive
A wish connected with this involved adopting a more cohesive,
the moment they get here it’s completely fragmented and
joined-up approach to web content management in order to
then the moment they leave they then get the lovely alumni
establish a more coherent image of the institution online:
magazine and asked for money. Now, there’s an enormous
gap there, and that doesn’t make any sense. So what are we Make it more consistent in look and feel across ALL areas.
doing with their money? And how is the success of the
university or the latest league table results…what impact is Complete rewrite of all content at the devolved sites, to
that having on the students as they actually take their three harmonise tone of voice and content.
year course? I don’t think the university at a top level is

Coherent web strategy tying departmental needs to
concerned at all about the messages its current students are
institutional identity.
getting about the institution, and it’s not hatched a plan
with that. Another popular wish was to create a user-friendly, media-rich
site with an emphasis on creating a personalised experience for
This issue ties into the results of both survey questions and
users:
interview comments about the significance of different
audiences for web content in the context of Higher Education. Media rich personalised experience for users.
If overseas students and other prospective students at home

Make it personalized and delivering more relevant
remain the most important audiences for web content in the
information.
present, will this trend continue into the future, and will this be
to the detriment of the quality of educational provision for Develop much more video and audio content (we have
students already at university? almost none) and no resources to change that at the
moment.
4.5.2 Ideal World
Restructuring web teams, improving resources and improving
The penultimate question in the survey required participants to
training and skills for the web were also aspects of the ideal
list three changes that, in an ideal world, they would make to
website scenario:
their institution’s website. The open responses covered a wide
range of interesting and revealing issues from which a number More staff to cope with the increasing demands of a growing
of key points emerged. One of the most frequent wishes that website
participants had was to scrap the existing system and start all

I would like all staff with web content roles to be fully Another participant mentioned restructuring both the site and
trained in writing for the web on an ongoing basis. the web team, as well as a desire for more media-rich content:
In many cases participants in the consultation interviews came I would reuse the content throughout the site, so make
up with a very similar wish-list for their websites in the future. A every area very focused on the groups of stakeholders that
number of interviewees commented on the need for complete would be accessing it but reusing content throughout the
redesign, as well as for more training and resources: site. I would completely change the structure of the kind of
people who contribute to that so that we do have a
[I would] start again! I think, really, it would be to get all the
centralised web team but we do have web editors within
Web Officers into one office and have a very clear sense
each of the key departments to manage that data. I’d have a
that we’re all looking to the same thing; but, again, you
lot more video; I’d consider the way we put information
know, to a strategy and to objectives. And, you know, we
across before publishing it so we’d decide whether it was
don’t actually need loads of money, but we need the skills
video, audio or written content or, actually, if it’s strong
and we have got them, they’re just devolved and that, to
visuals that we need to get the message across.
me, means that they’re not being as effective as they could
be. So, really, it would be the people; get them in one room Importantly, other interviewees emphasised the importance of
and working together and sharing those ideas instead of all cohesion, but also of a cultural shift towards a better
going off in different directions. understanding of the relationship between content and
technology, in order to realise the potential of the web for
I would like to…switch off the server and start again. In a
Higher Education contexts:
nutshell, there is just far too much content…I think if I had
a magic wand, I would just get [named CMS], get about ten I’d like to get everybody in the institution on one tool doing
developers trained in it, get information architecture one thing. I’d like to do up a suite of modules or plug-ins,
professionals like [name of company] in; get the whole things they can just go off to do standard tasks so they’re
institution in a proper architecture and just do it all available and ready. Simple things, as simple as creating a
beautifully and create work flow for all the people in the forum that deposits information in web space and lets folk
departments, get the institution to understand that they get information and do things with it. Get folk
need to do this, they need to have people appointed understanding what can be done with things like the Web
to…get the whole work flow established. Bob’s your uncle, 2.0 technologies – but truly understanding it. Not doing it
it would be wonderful; but that will never happen. because it's there and they can click a button and they can
use it, but actually understanding what audience they’ve got
Delete most of it! If I had unlimited resources, I would like
and what they can do with it. I suppose an education
to do what we did with the web redesign, which was focus
programme, that might be a good way of summarising that.
entirely on the top and do it all again, and serious audit our
web presence and start again; obviously we would never be Build it around our users once we know exactly who they
able to do that because of the sheer scale of it. There are are and allow people to be very clear, but through training,
hundreds of thousands of pages, its mind blowing. But I exactly how they put content up there, how they write
would love to be able to stop and take a snapshot of what content and how they can analyse and understand analytics
we are doing and think holistically across everything; go and then develop better content.
back and rethink how we reconstruct a departmental
4.5.3 Positivity – outlook for the future
website and how that links into the central website. I don’t
know how we would ever do that sort of thing! The wish-list presented above might lead us to assume that web
teams have a somewhat bleak vision of the future of web
development; after all, many of them would ideally like to

‘delete’ or ‘bin’ their existing systems and start all over again. it. They just didn’t want to do it. One of two of them would
However, it would seem that the contrary is in fact the case. It say that it was not in their Job Description – ‘I never came
is clear that the landscape of web management in HEI presents here to do web content management’ and now that has
a range of complex challenges, not least in terms of the completely shifted. Now practically every new person that
historical legacy of existing content and the particular nature of comes in almost expects to have to do web updates.
working in an academic environment. Data from both the
As mentioned above, others pointed to the positive change in
survey and from consultation interviews suggest, however, that
perspectives of the web among senior management. While
the outlook for the future of web development is in fact quietly
these may not always be reflected in current levels of funding,
optimistic. When asked about the future of web content
there is nevertheless an indication that the future will involve
management in their HEIs, 14 per cent of survey respondents
more, rather than less, investment in web development and,
agreed that they were very optimistic, scoring five on a scale of
hopefully, increased support and recognition for the work that
one to five where five represented ‘very optimistic’ and one
web teams do. The following comments provide some evidence
represented ‘very pessimistic’. A further 39 per cent scored their
of respondents recognising this shift:
optimism at four, while 29 per cent scored a three. Only 3 per
cent of respondents were ‘very pessimistic’ about the future of It’s seen as the massive – the web itself, especially with the
web content management. Marketing kind of aspects, student recruitment side; it’s
seen as a massive part of the Marketing strategy, and of
Figure 36 – How optimistic are you about the future development of
recovery plans. It’s seen as the main form of communication
web content management within your HEI?
with our external partners and to the public and the
1 - very pessimistic students, so it’s quite a high profile service, really, within the
university.
2
I think that they get the importance and I think this has
3
gone up in the last three or four years. It is much more a
4 part of the agenda and it is a part of everything that the

university does.
5 - very optimistic
It was also interesting to note that one interview participant

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
mentioned the national community of HE web developers as a
Interview participants provided further commentary on the source of support and inspiration through the different
nature of this feeling of optimism. One individual suggested that challenges and difficulties that have emerged over the years.
web content management had become more of an accepted While the consultation process as a whole was testament to the
aspect of working in academia, and that this in turn is making strength of this community, and of the culture of mutual respect
the job of web teams more manageable. This in a way is and co-operation that appears to exist between web teams at
indicative of a slow cultural shift towards recognising the different institutions, the quote below provides a direct
importance of the web within HE contexts: indication of the role of community in bolstering a sense of
optimism for the future:
I have noticed a real change in attitudes as well. I remember
five or six years ago a lot of people were reluctant to even And I have to say the community has been tremendously
become content providers. Probably about 20-30 per cent involved from the very beginning …, people like [name] and
of them were against it. You could tell after a while because [name] and a few others around the country that I’ve known
they kept reporting that their log-ins didn’t work or and worked with since I started the job, which must be 11
something was going funny with the CMS and could we do years or something now; those relationships are so close

and without them we would have really, really had a One of the most frequently reported recent changes in the web
difficult time. And, you know, that’s been one of the key content management landscape is that HEIs have become
things behind keeping us all going really. increasingly commercially oriented and market/marketing
driven. The most important audiences for institutions’ web
In keeping with the spirit of this comment, another participant
presences were reported to be potential students and alumni,
recognised the challenging, but potentially very rewarding
with the recruitment of overseas students – ‘the big income
nature of the work being done by web developers in Higher
generators’ – cited as the primary audience.
Education:
Changes in staffing were also linked to shifts in institutional
[Web developers should] develop a thick skin. You are going
mindset with regards to the management and production of
to be dealing with a lot of politics and if you can deal with
web content. According to consultees, at one level there had
that side of it you are going to have a lot of fun and a lot of
been a recent influx of personnel into HEIs, particularly within
professional satisfaction from all the other aspects of it.
marketing departments, with commercial or corporate
experience. At another level, whereas at one time academics
5 Endnote
may not have considered the contribution of web content to be
The SIRC research study investigating the management of web within their remit, a new generation of ‘tech-savvy’ employees
content within HEIs has generated a considerable quantity of increasingly expect and embrace this aspect of their work.
original data and makes a useful contribution to the body of
So what then does this mean for web content managers? Well,
existing knowledge in the field. The final report is, to a large
according to the survey responses, they remain generally
extent, framed by quantitative findings derived from the SIRC
positive about the future, while recognising that their role
survey. Implications from these data, however, are elaborated
comprises many challenges. What is important to stress, as one
and extended with insights gained from the qualitative phase of
consultee emphasised, is that web content management, as a
research.
professional sphere, is in its infancy, and that this is something
During the consultations there was some support for the notion ‘we often forget’. From being ‘the only person at the university
that the HEI / technology landscape is changing quite with “web” in their job title’, content managers appear to be
dramatically and a number of factors were cited as influencing playing an increasingly pivotal role in the direction and quality
this transition. According to some of the consultees, we may of their institution’s web presence; some are even of the
now have arrived at a period when the first generation of CMSs opinion that they are ‘at last’ beginning to receive the
have come and gone and have failed, to varying degrees, to live appropriate credit and support for the work that they do.
up to users’ expectations. Increasingly, the previous generation
of CMSs have been required to do tasks for which they were
not originally intended, resulting in them becoming unstable,
unreliable, cumbersome and, as one contributor remarked, ‘no
longer fit for purpose’.
Evidenced by the survey and the consultations is the perception

that HEIs now have a greater understanding and appreciation of
the ‘value’ of the web. While there continues to be some
disparity between institutions’ perceptions of the web’s value
and the resources willingly assigned to web development, there
is evidence to suggest that HEIs’ investment in the management
of web content is certainly ‘moving in the right direction’.

Investigation Into The Management of Web Content in Higher Education Institutions

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Investigation Into The Management of Web Content in Higher Education Institutions

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Investigation into the management of web content

in Higher Education Institutions

The Social Issues Research Centre

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Social Issues Research Centre 2009 2

2.1 The Web Team ............................................................................................................................................... 9

Job roles and responsibilities ............................................................................................................................... 9

Size of web teams and institutional positioning.................................................................................................... 9

Web team skills .................................................................................................................................................. 9

Web team challenges ......................................................................................................................................... 9

2.2 Institutional Issues, Attitudes & Strategies..................................................................................................... 9

Provision, authorisation and ‘ownership of content’ ............................................................................................ 9

Service provision .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Web resources ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Perceived value of the web and understanding of web teams in HE................................................................... 10

Attitudes to outsourcing .................................................................................................................................... 10

2.3 Content Management Systems..................................................................................................................... 11

CMS use – technical aspects ............................................................................................................................. 11

CMS use – decision-making .............................................................................................................................. 11

CMS use – satisfaction ...................................................................................................................................... 11

CMS use – change ............................................................................................................................................ 11

CMS non-use ................................................................................................................................................... 12

Open Source vs. Proprietary software ............................................................................................................... 12

2.4 End Users ..................................................................................................................................................... 12

User experience ............................................................................................................................................... 12

2.5 The Future .................................................................................................................................................... 12

Future developments ........................................................................................................................................ 12

Websites in an ideal world................................................................................................................................ 13

Social Issues Research Centre 2009 3

Positivity – an optimistic outlook for the future.................................................................................................. 13

4 Research findings ............................................................................................................................................... 16

4.1 The Web Team ............................................................................................................................................. 16

4.1.1 Job role / title / time in profession............................................................................................................. 16

4.1.2 Structure of the web team / size / where it sits.......................................................................................... 17

4.1.4 Web team challenges .............................................................................................................................. 20

4.2 Institutional Issues, Attitudes & Strategies................................................................................................... 23

4.2.1 Provision, authorisation & ownership of content....................................................................................... 23

4.2.2 Web strategy ........................................................................................................................................... 26

4.2.3 Models of service provision...................................................................................................................... 28

4.2.4 Web team resourcing .............................................................................................................................. 30

4.2.5 Value of the web ..................................................................................................................................... 32

4.2.6 Attitudes to outsourcing ........................................................................................................................... 33

4.3 Content Management Systems..................................................................................................................... 37

4.3.1 CMS use – technical aspects .................................................................................................................... 37

4.3.2 CMS use – decision-making ..................................................................................................................... 38

4.3.3 CMS use – satisfaction ............................................................................................................................. 39

4.3.4 CMS use – change ................................................................................................................................... 41

4.3.5 CMS – non-use........................................................................................................................................ 42

4.3.6 Open Source vs. Proprietary .................................................................................................................... 44

4.4 End Users ..................................................................................................................................................... 46

4.4.1 User experience / user behaviour............................................................................................................. 46

4.4.2 Audiences ............................................................................................................................................... 49

4.5 The future..................................................................................................................................................... 51

4.5.1 Future developments ............................................................................................................................... 51

4.5.2 Ideal World ............................................................................................................................................. 55

4.5.3 Positivity – outlook for the future ............................................................................................................. 56

Social Issues Research Centre 2009 4

Figure 1 – Average hours spent per activity per week........................................................................................ 17

Figure 2 – At what level does your web team operate? ..................................................................................... 17

Figure 3 – Department ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Figure 4 – Perception of the level of challenge .................................................................................................. 20

Figure 5 – Ownership & management of web content....................................................................................... 24

Figure 6 – Authorisation of web content ............................................................................................................ 25