Call for Proposals for IWMW 2012

UKOLN’s annual Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 2012) will be held at the University of Edinburgh on 18-20 June 2012.

This event, which is designed for members of institutional Web management teams, was first launched in 1997 and has been organised on an annual basis ever since. In 1997 the event was held over 2 days but, in answering the need to be able to cover a broad range of topics, was held over 3 days for every year until last year when, in response to concerns that funding difficulties might make it hard for people to attend, it reverted to 2 days. However since large numbers booked for the event and, in the concluding session at last year’s event, participants made it clear that a return to a longer format would be welcomed, we are pleased to say that IWMW 2012 will run over a 3-day period.

Over the past 15 years it has been held at a wide variety of locations across the United Kingdom, thus helping to ensure ease of participation from higher education institutions throughout the country. It has positioned itself as the ‘must-attend’ event for those with responsibilities for managing and developing institutional Web services.

Key emerging issues and opportunities are typically highlighted in the plenary talks, which try to reflect the current situation for Web managers in any given year. Hence in 2011 topics that came to the fore included: the value of the Web; using activity data to support your users; online privacy; and embedding Web 2.0 approaches within the institution. However the main opportunity for learning takes place in the parallel workshop sessions, which, again, reflect the suggestions that are made by delegates and followers of IWMW.  Thus in 2011 considerable discussion covered topics such as: accessibility, inclusiveness and the Mobile Web facilitated; enhancing your institutional Web site with interactive mapping; top ten legal issues to be thinking about now; and how to use social media conversations and activities to measure and demonstrate impact and improve engagement. The large number of parallel sessions allows delegates to address the wide diversity of interests of those working in institutional Web teams, and the time provided in these sessions – 90 minutes – enables issues to be examined in depth while providing an opportunity for participants to engage actively in the discussions.

This year’s theme is Embedding Innovation. In accordance with this theme, the event will explore ways in which innovative technologies and ways of working can be embedded in order to respond to the challenges provided by rapid technological developments, changing user expectation and, of course, reduced levels of funding.

The call for submissions is now available. We invite submissions for plenary talks and parallel workshop sessions, as well as suggestions for other ways of engaging with the event participants.

In addition to the online submission form, we have also set up an IdeaScale site that can be used to submit ideas for content areas you would like to see covered at the event, suggestions for additional ways in which topics can be addressed, and proposals for social activities during our time at Edinburgh.

IWMW 2012 will be the event’s third visit to Scotland, after IWMW 2002  at the University of Strathclyde and IWMW 2008 at the University of Aberdeen. We are looking forward to visiting Scotland’s capital city and the range of topics to be addressed at the event.