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Higher Ed Web Org Chart: Separation from the Top

Another quick update on the data from my survey of web departments in the higher ed hierarchy, as I delve a little bit deeper into the data. This time I looked at the number of levels that separate the web department from university presidents (or their equivalents). This info is somewhat less than exact, as it requires a bit of parsing of the data, as I didn’t exactly ask the question in that form; rather, the answers are culled from the more vaguely worded “As best you can, please describe the chain of command as it relates to the web group.” 

In any case, there is an average of 1.8 levels of hierarchy between the head of web departments and the leaders of their schools. Unsurprisingly, large schools seem to have slightly more levels present, but the difference is not large: 1.9  for schools of over 5000 students (n=34), 1.7 for smaller schools (n= 35). Interestingly, schools where the web department exists within IT seem to have fewer layers between the web and the president: (1.5, n=11) vs. (1.7, n=51) for those where the web lives under marketing. 
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Higher Ed Web Org Chart: Large Schools

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%
Does the group that you identified as  performing the majority of web work at your institution charge other departments at the institution for its services? (n=15)
  • No: 73%
  • Sometimes/It depends: 13%
  • Yes: 13%
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Higher Ed Web Org Chart: Small Schools

Following up on my last post, here are stats specifically for small schools (under 5,000 students, n=45). Stats for larger schools to come.

How centralized is the production and maintenance of the web at your school?

  • 1 (very centralized): 31% 
  • 2: 13% 
  • 3: 24% 
  • 4: 24% 
  • 5 (very decentralized): 7% 

The group that does *the majority* of your institution’s web work is part of:

  • Marketing/Communications/PR: 62% 
  • IT: 20% 
  • Some combination of the above or other: 18% 

How many people work for that web group?

  • 1: 27% 
  • 2-5: 67% 
  • 5-10: 7%
  • Over 10: 0% 

Are you a part of that web group?

  • Yes: 96% 
  • No: 4% 

What kind of tasks does that web group perform?

  • Information Architecture 100%
  • Website Development 91%
  • Visual Design 82%
  • Content Strategy and/or Production 80%
  • Social Media Management 62%
  • Application Development 51%  
  • Server Administration 40%  
  • Other 4% 

To whom does the head of the web group report?

  • VP or Dean: 31%
  • President or equivalent: 20%
  • Other: 20%
  • CIO: 18%
  • Assistant VP or Assistant Dean: 13%
  • CTO: 0%
Does the group that you identified as  performing the majority of web work at your institution charge other departments at the institution for its services? (n=13)
  • No: 85%
  • Sometimes/It depends: 8%
  • Yes: 8%
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Web in the Higher Ed Org Chart

At next month’s HighEdWeb Michigan conference, I’ll be presenting a talk titled “The Dream Org Chart,” in which I’ll examine some of the different organizational models within which institutions of higher education place their web teams, and suggest a model that I believe would solve some of the challenges that institutions face in the maintenance of a high-quality web presence.

To gather data for the first part of the presentation, I set up a Google form and turned to my colleagues on Twitter and the UWebD mailing list. Exactly one hundred responses rolled in over just a few days, far more than I had planned on or even hoped for. I am no longer surprised by the kindness and generosity of spirit that resides in the higher ed web community, but I continue to be thrilled and humbled by it.

Sifting through all of this data will take some time, but I will continue to post here as I analyze it, and will of course post my final presentation here as well. Clearly, there is a hunger for this information in the community, so I am happy to make the responses public (please note that I have had to update this link). I have stripped as much identifying data as possible.

So without further ado, some initial numbers are below. How these numbers relate to your expectations? Any surprises, or suspicions confirmed?

What size is your institution?

  • Under 1,000 students: 5% 
  • Between 1,000-5,000 students: 40% 
  • Between 5,000-10,000 students:14% 
  • Over 10,000 students: 41% 

How centralized is the production and maintenance of the web at your school?

  • 1 (very centralized): 21% 
  • 2: 17% 
  • 3: 29% 
  • 4: 24% 
  • 5 (very decentralized): 9% 

The group that does *the majority* of your institution’s web work is part of:

  • Marketing/Communications/PR: 59% 
  • IT: 23% 
  • Some combination of the above: 12% 
  • Other: 6% 

How many people work for that web group?

  • 1: 14% 
  • 2-5: 60% 
  • 5-10: 17% 
  • Over 10: 9% 

Are you a part of that web group?

  • Yes: 91% 
  • No: 9% 

What kind of tasks does that web group perform?

  • Website Development 94%
  • Information Architecture 87% 
  • Visual Design 87%
  • Content Strategy and/or Production 77%
  • Social Media Management 61%
  • Application Development 58%  
  • Server Administration 36%  
  • Other 9% 

To whom does the head of the web group report?

  • VP or Dean: 31%
  • Other: 28%
  • CIO: 16%
  • Assistant VP or Assistant Dean: 14%
  • President or equivalent: 9%
  • CTO: 1%
I also asked one follow-up question of those who had shared their email addresses with me, namely:
Does the group that you identified as  performing the majority of web work at your institution charge other departments at the institution for its services? (n=26 27)
  • No: 81%
  • Sometimes/It depends: 12 11%
  • Yes: 8 7%
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Field Notes from #heweb12

I just got home from HighEdWeb 2012 in Milwaukee, and rather than wait weeks to jot down my impressions like I did last year, I figured I’d best write up my thoughts on this year’s Bonnaroo of the higher ed web world right away.

I definitely enjoyed this year’s Best in Conference winner, “I don’t have your Ph.D: Working with Faculty and the Web,” by Amanda Costello (summary by Laura Kenyon), but my “golden nugget” for this year’s conference had to do with the potential of site-specific mobile experiences, something that ties in neatly with my academic fascination with the creation of spaces. Both Cornelia Bailey of UChicago and Kyle Bowen of Purdue (Kyle, whom I had the pleasure of running into at the Mars Cheese Castle on the way home, won Best in Track for his talk [write-up by Lori Packer]) gave really interesting examples of how mobile technology could be used to great effect in specific but very different settings, namely a museum in Cornelia’s talk and the classroom in Kyle’s. I’m itching to try projects like these at the Law School if the opportunity presents itself.

And while this year’s conference sadly did not include a Johnny Cash cover band made up of conference attendees, I did get involved by presenting two talks. The first, “Reach Out and Touch Someone: Marshall McLuhan and the Tactile Web,” was pretty theoretical and abstract, a change of pace for a conference mostly focused on the nitty-gritty of web work, so I wasn’t sure how it would be received. You can download my Keynote presentation (sorry Windows users, still trying to find a good way to present a presentation this big on the web) or read the write-up by Lori Packer on Link. I was pleased to get a good amount of positive feedback on the content of the talk, as well as on the concept of keeping the higher ed web engaged with big ideas like McLuhan’s work. I also gave a joint presentation with Tonya Oaks Smith of UALR Bowen Law on the differences between working in communications at a professional school or other specialty unit within a university and a four-year undergrad institution (slideshare is here). We had a few audience members who were really engaged, and I hope the conversation will continue.

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Upcoming Talks at #heweb12

The schedule has been finalized for a while, but I’m just now getting around to announcing that I’ll be giving a couple of talks at the upcoming 2012 HighEdWeb conference, the annual think-and-fun-fest of the Higher Education Web Professionals Association, in Milwaukee (affectionately known as “#heweb12“). Last year’s conference, in Austin, was my first #heweb, and I managed to make it out with my sole responsibility being leading a Johnny Cash cover band. This year I’ll be making up for it by participating in two presentations. One, “There’s Life Beyond the Four-Year University,” will be a panel discussion with Tonya Oaks Smith and Shari Erwin about the communications challenges that face web professionals in settings other than the standard undergraduate campus. The other, “Reach Out and Touch Someone: Marshall McLuhan and the Tactile Web” will use the ideas of the famous media theorist to examine the rise of the touch-based web. Alas, if you haven’t already registered, #heweb12 is sold out, but be sure to follow the hashtag on Twitter and keep an eye on the HighEdWeb site for recaps.

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Notes from HighEdWeb 2011

I am finally, after 2+ weeks, forcing myself to sit down and reflect on what I learned at my first HighEdWeb conference. The bloggers from Link did a much better job than I could ever hope to do of summing up each of the presentations I attended (the title of each talk below is linked to a summary), so I’ll simply provide my primary takeaway from each session.

Carrying the Banner: Reinventing News on Your University Web Site by Georgy Cohen (slides) – We need to look for ways to be more immediate in our news coverage; for example, quick video responses to items happening today.

What Colleges Can Learn From The Insane Clown Posse by Karlyn Borysenko (neé Morissette) (podcast | slides) – Colleges and universities need to know who they are and who their people are, and not apologize for it.

The Politics of Doing IA for HighEd by Aaron Baker (podcast | slides) – Information architecture is like planning a kitchen, where everyone has to be able to find the tools they need.

What Content Strategy Really Means for Higher Ed  by Kate Johnson – Determine a process for producing and maintaining content, *especially* after its launched.

I’d Buy That For a Dollar: What Robocop Can Teach us about Alumni Engagement by Jeff Stevens – Three prime directives for alumni engagement: make it compelling; make it collaborative; make it competitive.

Engaging Your Global Audience with Real-Time Campus Event Coverage by Seth Odell – One camera, one laptop, one person is all it takes to do the most basic of live streaming.

Politics or treason: Toeing the line or begging forgiveness in site adaptation by Anne Petersen (slides | podcast) – Always be testing, even if it’s just bringing an iPad into the student lounge.

Multimedia and Social Storytelling: Capitalize on Content by Donna Talarico (slides) – There are many ways to tell a story on the web: POV, narratives, photos, videos, infographics, audio

Making a CSS Framework that Works for You by Dan Sagisser (slides) – Doesn’t really apply to UChicagoLaw at the moment, but I can see how a CSS framework might be useful to us for, say, a series of minisites.

Swingin’ with Sinatra: Small Apps Fast by Sven Aas (slides) – Not being a programmer, I didn’t understand most of this, but did learn a very important lesson about being prepared for hardware failures while in the midst of a presentation.

Shawn Henry Keynote: Accessibility – Links to some great pages on the W3C site for thinking about and working with accessibility issues.

For me, though, much of the value of any of conferences like this (and of this one especially) comes less from the presentations and more from the experience of the conference itself — of meeting amazing people in person whom I had previously known only via Facebook and Twitter, of networking, commiserating, and bonding with my peers, of spending half a week helping to build a real, live community of web professionals.

And lest I forget, there was also my own contribution to the conference: a series of Johnny Cash tunes rewritten for and performed by higher ed web geeks. You’ve been warned.

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Back to School with Edward Tufte

Earlier this week I had the chance to attend a one-day course taught by Edward Tufte, author of one of the classic texts of information design, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
 (he has also written Envisioning Information, Visual Explanations, and Beautiful Evidence). Have attained rock-star status among certain circles of geeks (he spends a total of about an hour at these courses signing autographs), the Yale statistics Professor Emeritus spoke for about five hours on the topic of “Presenting Data and Information.” In large part, the course was a distillation of the arguments he has made in his books, with a practical focus on presenting and consuming in-person presentations of information. Some of the points he made that stuck with me:

  • Presenting (and consuming) information is a moral act as well as a practical one, that must be done honestly.
  • The process of presenting information should always be driven by the content, not by style or software capabilities. Everything else is “chart junk.”
  • There is no such thing as information overload, only bad design.
  • Powerpoint presentations set up an authoritarian presentation-style based on information denial. They have incredibly slow rates of information transfer and are therefore disrespectful of the audience. Instead, provide the audience with high-resolution, high-density information on paper, allow them to look it over and explore themselves, then allow them to cross-examine you about it.
  • There is nothing wrong with tables — people efficiently consume large amounts of data in tables every day (for example, in sports pages).
  • You can — and should — clarify by adding more data.

Of course, all designers would agree with some of these points (that design should be content-driven, for example) but that last point seems to fly in the face of conventional design thinking. I would love to hear a debate between Tufte and John Maeda (whose book Laws of Simplicity I reviewed a while back).

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Building (Virtual) Community in the Big Easy

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend Do It With Drupal, a conference on the open source content management system (Drupal) that we’ll be adopting at the Law School in the near future. Aside from the chance to experience Abita Turbodog, great jazz at the Spotted Cat (and more great jazz across the street at D.B.A.), beignets at Cafe Dumond, absinthe, the earliest measurable snow ever in New Orleans (thanks to Avi Schwab for those photos), and the greatest snack food in history, I had the chance to rub elbows with some of the leaders in the Drupal movement, including the conference organizers, the Drupal consulting firm Lullabot.

Now, I’m not a programmer by trade or by inclination, so there was plenty of full-frontal nerdity at this conference that flew well over my head (I’m pretty sure at one point folks at one presentation were actually talking in PHP), though the introduction to the Views module by inventor Earl Miles was worth the price of admission to me. Most fascinating to me, though, were the talks about community building, particularly those by Brian Oberkirch and Lane Becker. They really got me thinking about how we can continue our mission to make the Law School’s site into an extension of the very distinct community it represents, to function as a virtual Green Lounge (the main gathering place at the school) where people can debate, argue, and laugh together.

What’s great about using Drupal as a tool for this task is that it is more than a content management system — it’s a community of people building a platform for building communities. Interaction and community are, as one presenter put it, “baked into the code.”