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    *
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