Last Thursday, we held an event for all University Web Maintainers to introduce our merged team and to present our plans for the future. Our main objective was to chat informally with colleagues and to gain some feedback regarding our service provision. We also used the event to inform colleagues of our plans to postpone migration for non-academic departments into the Content Management System (CMS) whilst we carry out some extensive work on the architecture of the site.

We had a good turnout, but as many colleagues couldn’t make it, this blog post will attempt to cover some of the key points we discussed. For reference the slides are also available on slideshare

Key Points

• The Web Services team now sit within the Department of Policy and Planning and form part of Corporate Communications Services (along with Corporate Communications and Imaging, Design and Print)
• The aim of the team is to “ensure the University’s use of web technologies bears comparison with the best and the website is structured as a customer-focused, market-facing, corporate resource“
• A Web Designer post has been approved and will be advertised shortly – bringing a designer into the team will enable us to strengthen our visual identity
• The main objective for the moment is to move the website away from reflecting the structure of the University and towards user-focussed channels for information
• CMS migration will continue for Academic Departments; however, the rest of the site will undergo some significant information architecture work to ensure information is accessible for the end-user and to avoid duplication of content
• Web Services will continue to work with Web Maintainers and colleagues across the University to develop the site

This blog will be used to update people on our progress, but please feel free to post comments and send us feedback.