Investigation into the management of website content in higher education institutions

The final report from the Eduserv-funded 'Investigation into the management of web content in Higher Education Institutions' by the Social Issues Research Centre is now available for download. 

Some of the key findings from the report include:

• Increasing demands upon web teams are not always matched by the necessary resources - there was a strong feeling (99% of respondents) that senior management considered the institutional web presence to be more important than they did five years ago. However it was also thought by many that funding of the web team did not match expectations of the website.
• Only 44% of institutions have a web strategy – half of those with a strategy had implemented it this year.
• 43% have systems for publishing content to style, content and branding guidelines.
• The most important audience for HEI websites is potential students (UK and Overseas).
• 85% of institutions use a Content Management System (CMS).
• The future of web management in HE is likely to be characterised by the rise of greater, richer media content and a shift towards user-led, personalised websites.
• Most institutions have in-house provision for video material (73%), audio (69%) and online social networking (41%).
• 63% of university web teams do not have enough resource and strategy to keep up with technological changes and only 20% were confident that these would become available.
• Dealing with time pressures is the most significant challenge faced by web management teams, closely followed by maintaining standards of authorship across the institution.
• Most HEI web teams are small (between one and four people) and require a mix of technical and managerial skills. They tend to sit between IT and marketing, or are partly or fully in one of these departments, which can lead to confusion about what web teams actually do.
• An effective institutional web manager needs an all-rounder skillset to navigate the worlds of digital media, ‘old school’ university culture, business and marketing.

Andy Powell, Research Programme Director at Eduserv, comments:

"The management of university web content and applications more generally continues to mature as an area of professional activity and there is a growing recognition of the value that the web and the web team bring to the institution.

That said, there appears to be a continued emphasis (particularly amongst senior members of higher education institutions) on using the web as a way of “marketing the institution to new audiences” rather than meeting the ‘business needs’ of existing members of the institution such as lecturers, students and researchers and other staff.

Furthermore, despite the growing recognition of value there is a perceived mismatch between the expectations put on the web team and the level of resources made available to them leading to significant ‘time pressures’ for many teams."

Read more of Andy's views on the report's findings at the eFoundations blog.

This study was funded under our research programme for two reasons:

• Firstly, to improve HEIs' understanding of how other institutions are currently managing their web content and to raise awareness of trends and possible future directions.
• Secondly, to enhance our own understanding of institutional requirements for the management of web content and to influence our 2-3 year plans for service provision in line with our charitable mission.

The work has been undertaken by SIRC, an independent, not-for-profit organisation based in Oxford, led by Simon Bradley. The investigation represents one of the largest pieces of research into the subject with 134 respondents from 103 universities via an online survey, while literature reviews, exploratory and in-depth interviews provided further qualitative information.

We used the information gathered during this study to inform an interactive session at this year's Institutional Web Management Workshop at the University of Essex in July 2009 entitled  'Care in the community - how do you manage your web content?'.  The outputs of discussion group sessions at that workshop and a presentation from Simon Bradley are available.

Eduserv is a not-for-profit IT service provider with a charitable mission to realise the benefits of ICT for learners and researchers. We do this primarily through the IT services we provide to the UK higher education community, the NHS and the wider public sector.