Becky, you raise some very legitimate questions which I suspect all universities are struggling with as the abstract concept of the Web catches up with the reality of the Web, and its (almost) unlimited potential. At University of New Orleans we have a central "grand webmaster" who acts as purely a technical consultant to all the webmasters designated by departments and colleges. The maintenance and supervision of all Web information is the responsibility of each of the individual vice chancellors, deans, chairs, directors, or their Web designees. These Webmasters all have responsibility for maintaining 1 or more home pages. "Decentralized cooperation" is key to making Web information "work" for the University as a whole. The way this is operationalized here is, you might have one department which technically is "responsible" for certain information; but several departments may feel it is logical to point to that information on their own Web pages (Example: admissions, registrar, retention services, and all academic departments might point to the same university catalogue of classes, which is maintained by the registrar). There are many such examples on our campus. Responding to your two questions: 1. "Who" supplies and maintains the information? "Supply" and "maintain" are indeed two separate activities. Your whole research office must be involved in the supply part, because no one person "creates" all the information used in research administration; it comes from a variety of sources both internal and external to the department. "Maintenance", while truly "fun" as you said, is definitely not something which can be done thoroughly if you must "sandwich" it between too many "regular" duties. Remember, the success of your Web page will be largely determined by how *accurate*, *timely*, *logically organized*, and *pleasing displayed* it is. If you don't satisfy at least these criteria, people won't "visit" your page often enough to accomplish its purpose. At UNO, I have dual responsibility for pre-award activities and I serve as the the Research Office webmaster, so it is an integral part of my duties. I spend about 90% of my time on things which can be considered "traditional" areas of pre-award research administration, which includes technical consulting with faculty concerning the *rapidly proliferating* amount of Internet and Web information available as well as all the usual things we do to help faculty get their proposals completed. Maintenance of your own Research Office Web site is really a separate and distinct activity, and you are wise to view it so. My experience tells me I wish I had about 5 more hours per week to add to "my current 10% or less" devoted to "our Web project". This would be helpful in addressing all of the needs that maintenance of a Web site implies including but not limited to: coordination of all the information which *will* get there somehow from all of the varied sources; design of the pages themselves (my personal favorite); and conversion of existing information into a format which is more presentable on the Web. While it's true that HTML is certainly easy enough to learn, the information doesn't transform itself magically (sometimes I wish it would). Then of course there is the area of understanding how your Web pages should be logically organized for the visitors (sometimes involving redesign of existing Web pages); graphics (which make the pages appealing to visitors & help them want to revisit); and finally, incorporating a few "bells and whistles" (which should probably be the last priority). As a benchmark, I think if you had about 5 hours per week devoted to your Research Office Web site you could make it "tolerable"; but 10 hours would probably make it pretty outstanding. If your office truly wants to display *all* of the information which goes through there, i.e. a full fledged information system, then 20-40 hours per week is more realistic. 2. Who will monitor the quality of the information? This is a very important point. Because "the Web phenomena" is a relatively new concept having only made its "grand debut" early in 1994, it is likely that for most of us who graduated prior to then (which may very well include the 900 people on this listserve!), there are many issues regarding its role which are still being determined by university administrations. Consequently I've noticed a tendency in *many* instances to annoint relatively junior staff, even student assistants with the "Web maintenance" part *as well as* "information content responsibility". This is not a good idea, unless that person really has someone more senior looking closely over their shoulder. Think of it this way: that would be similar to letting someone with limited experience solely produce a PBS special on "research administration" without having anyone review the tape before it is broadcast to the world. Not wise. On the other hand, you must balance this caution by not implementing so many "review channels" that the thing is outdated by the time it gets into the Web page. Anything that gets posted on our Web page has already been approved by our Vice Chancellor for Research in some other form, or is placed there based on my responsibilities vis a' vis pre-award activities or other directives. I hope these comments have been helpful and good luck with your project! It is definitely a way that research offices can more effectively reach more faculty for the next few years of activity in the grant industry. ****************************************** * Jane E. Prudhomme, Director * * Research and Sponsored Programs * * University of New Orleans * * New Orleans, LA 70148 * * (504) 286-7154 * * Internet: xxxxxx@uno.edu * * Web Page: http://www.uno.edu/~orsp * ******************************************
