WWW Development Guide for University Outreach and Extension Offices and Programs
Task Outline | Roles and Responsibilities | Maintenance Planning | HTML Learning Resources |
It is the goal of University Outreach and Extension to provide Web pages that are a creditable source of information, upholding a high standard of content quality. Building a Web site is only the beginning. It may seem like once the site is built and out on the server that the hard part is done, but it's not so. Consistent maintenance and updating is essential.
The nature of the Web as a dynamic, immediate medium demands that sites be constantly monitored for freshness and updated regularly. Stale Web pages are worse than having NO Web pages because you are advertising to your visitors that you don't care enough about your site to keep it up to date.
To that end, it is necessary that each group planning a Web site consider from the very beginning how maintenance and updates will be accomplished. To help you, we have defined three roles that should be filled for every UO/E Web site housed on outreach.missouri.edu.
1. Web Manager
The Web Manager has the following responsibilities:
- Primary contact person for that Web site for the UO/E Webmaster
- Monitors access priviledges to the Web site account for page editing purposes
- Makes sure all Page Maintainers have read and signed an Acceptable Use Agreement Policy
- Requests access for new Maintainers from the UO/E Webmaster
- Informs UO/E Webmaster when someone no longer needs access
- Coordinates Web development activities for the site, making sure all the Owners and Maintainers know what eachother are working on, to avoid chance of people over-writing eachothers work
- Makes sure UO/E Web policies such as footer consistency and citations are being followed throughout the site
- Generally keeps an eye on the site to see that things are up-to-date, links are working, etc.
- Reminds Maintainers when their content becomes stale and needs updating
- Ensure that whatever review process is adopted for the site is enforced and adhered to
Preferably, the Web Manager will be the CPD, office director or program director rather than a support staff person.
2. Content Owner
The Content Owner is the author or editor for a content piece. The Owner may be different for every content piece on the Web site. Owners should be clearly credited or identified on a document, just as they would be in print.When possible, there should be an active e-mail link to the author for more information.
The Content Owner is responsible for the accuracy and credibility of a content piece. The Content Owner can delegate management responsibilities for the document (i.e. give it to a Maintainer to post on the Web site) but he/she cannot delegate Ownership of those pages. (That would be like asking Kinko's to take responsibility for the statistics in your newsletter because they printed 500 copies of it.) Content Ownership cannot be outsourced to a third part or contractor, either.
3. Page Maintainer
Page Maintainers can be the Web Manager, Content Owner or someone else completely. Page Maintainers actually build the Web pages within the site, convert content to Web format, make updates to the pages, etc.
One site can have one Page Maintainer or several Page Maintainers. When there are several, they have to be more careful about who is working on what because the potential for over-writing eachothers work increases. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as the saying goes.
- Page Maintainers should not make changes to the content given to them unless authorized by the Content Owner to do so.
- Page Maintainers should be familiar with and adhere to the UO/E Web publishing policies
- Page Maintainers should have a basic level of training in using the Web publishing software. Training is available from the UO/E Web Team. The Training schedule is posted at: http://outreach.missouri.edu/webteam/training/
- Page Maintainers must read and sign the Acceptable Use Agreement Policy before being given access to the Web site account.
|
|
||||
 |
Kate Akers akersk@missouri.edu Last revised: 12/12/06 |
 |
||
