Tag: higher ed

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.” 

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?

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?

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.

Following up on last week’s post about #heweb12, I’ve created a Storify about my Milwaukee experience.

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.

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.