Institutional Web Management Workshop 2004:
Defining the Role of the Web Editor: Session Details
Ian Upton, Web Application Developer
Some background from Birmingham....it might sound familiar!
- Support Web for authors on campus
- Over quarter of a million web pages
- Have Virtual hosts for large chunks of the website
- Schools and Departments are responsible for their own website. With one named 'web person' having overall responsibility and any number of 'web authors/coordinators' under their wing.
Main problem is the Isolation of the web authors and lack of communication. Support mechanisms need to be established to help with this.
4 or 5 years ago it was thought that the role of a 'Web Editor' was a technical role, not to be confused with having anything to do with the content of the site. Things have changed now though and the role is much less technical (we now have techies for that!) and more content focussed. We feel more responsible for the information that we are putting on the website.
Originally senior staff took the role of web editor as it was thought to be sexy and exciting..........they soon learned that with all the constant updates necessary, it wasn't that exciting and certainly not sexy!!! The role was then passed to anyone who looked like they needed something to do.........obviously alongside their own job!
As the use of the web has grown so has the responsibility and profile of the web editor. Soon people were employed just to work on the web as web editors/authors, although in many cases people are still juggling two roles.
The main task at Birmingham was to educate the editors to appreciate the university brand. This session that is taking place at the conference 'Defining the role of the Web Editor' was carried out with the editors within the university to give the editors a better idea of what is expected and what skills they need.
What we (at the conference) decided:
What skills are required of a web editor?
- Good interpersonal skills
- The ability to sell the web to web authors
- Being familiar with and able to use the software that is needed
- The ability to bridge the gap between the techies and the er, humans ;)
- Being able to appreciate and enforce the 'Institutional Brand'
- Having knowledge of the appropriate treatment of material - using the best format for a particular job. Also trying to create good quality material that can be easily used in various formats, possibly by a variety of people eg for the web or for printing purposes
- Knowing your target audience......create a web style that is appropriate, serious or funky - get the right approach
- Knowing your institution - It's not what you know its who you know that counts......find out who deals with what, it is much easier to get information that you need
- Having good writing skills including general good practise, being able to write for the web and being able to convert print copy
- Jargon busting skills, so helpful when dealing with less technical authors around the institution
What are the responsibilities?
- Having ownership the work you are doing, either of changes that are being made or of the content of the pages/websites
- Maintaining a high level of grammar and spelling in the documents you are putting on the web, even if the document came from someone else and you've been told to put it on the web, you should feel responsible for the accuracy of it
- Having an excellent knowledge of corporate guidelines
- Maintaining contact with users
- Keeping things up to date, maybe having a review strategy to make sure documents don't become out of date or incorrect
- Having knowledge and enforcing the quality and standards
What helps you do a good job?
- Communication
- Support
- Clear Institutional direction or strategy
What stops you doing a good job?
- Lack of communication
- Lack of training or not having the opportunity to use learned skills frequently enough
- Technical support staff
Solutions to problems and questions raised:
If technical skills are needed, should those people get extra recognition for them??
Writing courses for all staff should be available to help staff create good quality material, both for paper versions and for on the web. It's important to realise that there is a very different writing style that is needed for each.
Get the authors to interact more:
By trying to create a community feel for authors maybe?? At the University of Essex we encourage all authors to be part of a Web Authors Group (WAG), we have a mailing list which is the primary source for providing information to our web authors about any issues to do with the web for example downtime of servers for maintenance. We produce a monthly newsletter which is sent via e-mail praising the work they have done and highlighting any new jobs that have taken place and those which have a wider effect on the university. We hint at areas within their website that they could be working on at particular times of the year, exams, on-line course catalogue for the start of term and clearing for instance. We also provide links to one or two light hearted sites that might be of interest. We've even had an interesting discussion about small furry rodents ... well, we try to keep it easy to read and a little bit funny otherwise it's just more boring mail in your inbox.
We hold an annual event where we invite all our authors to come and meet us and each other. We run sessions on a wide variety of web related subjects and invite university staff who have undertaken interesting Web-related topics to come and showcase their site. We always have a discussion session which gets them taking to each other and give them lunch and cakes which gives them an opportunity to chat in a more informal setting to the staff in the Web Support Unit and to each other. We also try to encourage them to get in touch with each other after the event, get them to look at each others sites and give advice and take inspiration.
We have a website dedicated to our web authors group: http://www2.essex.ac.uk/wag/ which gives advice, news and developments, useful links, university guidelines and regulations along with handouts used for all the training courses we run.
The role of the web editor at Essex is a much more appreciated role now than it ever was, although this definitely wasn't the case at all institutions. In some cases staff at Essex have been promoted or given extra increments on the basis of the extra web work that they are doing which gives a good example to other staff taking on extra web duties. In general they feel that the job they are doing is an important one as it has an impact right across the University. Many departments/section now employ someone to specifically look after the web, rather than a secretary trying to fit it in alongside her already busy job ... although that still happens in some smaller areas.
The final thing that helps the web authors feel part of 'the group' would be the Web Support Unit staff. Employing two non techies to 'bridge the gap' between the scary world of the web' and ' life on the outside' was a risk that paid off. Having a friendly face to turn to if it all goes wrong makes a huge difference in their confidence and the fact that we speak their language constantly amazes them!