Further breaking down the data the data from my survey of higher ed web organizations, below is a breakdown of schools identified as having more than 5,000 students (n=55). There were no huge surprises, the major differences with small schools being that large schools tend to be less centralized and have larger staffs (my heart breaks for the Armies of One at these large schools!). Perhaps reflecting their more decentralized models, large schools’ web departments are slightly more likely to charge other departments for their services and significantly less likely (0% of respondents!) to have their heads report directly to the university’s president. They are also slightly more likely to still be contained within IT departments (perhaps reflecting the difficulty of fighting organizational inertia in a large institution?). Finally, large schools seem, oddly, to be less inclined to provide information architecture services.
How centralized is the production and maintenance of the web at your school?
- 1 (very centralized): 13%
- 2: 20%
- 3: 33%
- 4: 24%
- 5 (very decentralized): 11%
The group that does *the majority* of your institution’s web work is part of:
- Marketing/Communications/PR: 56%
- IT: 25%
- Some combination of the above or other: 18%
How many people work for that web group?
- 1: 4%
- 2-5: 55%
- 5-10: 25%
- Over 10: 16%
Are you a part of that web group?
- Yes: 87%
- No: 13%
What kind of tasks does that web group perform?
- Website Development 96%
- Visual Design 91%
- Information Architecture 84%
- Content Strategy and/or Production 75%
- Application Development 69%
- Social Media Management 62%
- Server Administration 35%
- Other 5%
To whom does the head of the web group report?
- VP or Dean: 36%
- Other: 25%
- CIO: 18%
- Assistant VP or Assistant Dean: 16%
- None: 4%
- CTO: 2%
- President or equivalent: 0%
- No: 73%
- Sometimes/It depends: 13%
- Yes: 13%