IWMW 2017 Deadline Approaching!

Looking Back at IWMW 2016

The IWMW 2016 event was held in Liverpool just over a year ago. Write-ups about the event have been published on the University of St Andrews Digital Communications Team blog; Plymouth University’s Create Digital blog; the TerminalFOUR blog and the University of Kent Web Development Team blog.  Since the University of Kent is hosting the forthcoming IWMW 2017 event it is appropriate to highlight their concluding remarks:

For me, the key takeaways from this event are that the landscape of the sector is evolving. Students have higher expectations and we need to be able to satisfy these. Data driven decisions are important – asking users what they need in terms of the web will give different answers to what they actually ‘do.’

Several sessions from this conference have given me food for thought and highlighted areas that our department needs to find out more about, especially in terms of what we are doing with social media, and how this can assist with the institutional strategy. It has also echoed areas that we are doing well; especially when it comes to agile and Lean UX principles

Looking back, the event was particularly memorable for me for a number of reasons: the 20th anniversary celebrations (and the various prizes which were donated over the 3 days); the conference dinner at the Merseyside Maritime Museum; revisiting my home town of Liverpool (and being a tourist on the open top bus after the event was over) but also for the positive vibes which were particularly noticeable during the final session. Indeed I remember my concluding remarks: “Have a good journey home – and if you haven’t voted, make sure you do so!” – the final day of the event was 23 June, the day of the EU referendum.

Looking Forward to IWMW 2017

We all know what happened that day, and I recall the shock I felt when I looked at my iPad at 6am the following morning, And the ramifications of Brexit continue to worry many working in higher education. Such concerns, and other challenges facing the sector, will underpin this year’s IWMW 2017 event which has the theme “It’s The End Of The Institution As We Know It (And We Feel Fine)“.  On the second and third days of the event plenary speakers will describe positive aspects of institutional digital activities which leaves them feeling fine about Governance Issues; Tools and Technologies; Understanding Our Users; Working With The Wider Community and The Core Community.  But I have to admit that I am particularly looking forward to the open session on the theme “The End of the World?” which opens with a talk by Bonnie Ferguson, University of Kent on “The UK’s European University in a Time of Brexit” and is followed by Andrew Millar, University of Dundee on “Having a Good order zithromax Crisis…and Not Wasting It“.

In addition to the plenary talks the event also hosts a wide range of workshop sessions and master classes – indeed, as can be seen from the figures given in a post on Overview of Speakers at IWMW Events this year will feature the largest number of speakers since the event was launched 21 years ago!

One of the changes for IWMW 2017 is that we have revived the notion of the event co-chair.  Marieke Guy was co-chair for several years when the event was organised by UKOLN. After the re-launch of the event in 2014 this year it was felt that the event would benefit from fresh insight into the event organisation, as well as helping to ensure the sustainability of the event. Claire Gibbons, former Senior Web and Content Manager at the University of Bradford, is the IWMW 2017 co-chair and also co-chair of the IWMW 2017 advisory group.  As well as working with event sponsors Claire also has responsibility for the events social programme. And as Claire has described in ta recent blog post on Social Activities at IWMW 2017:

This year we have decided to break with tradition and hold two social events based around an evening meal. On the opening night we will have a conference dinner in Rutherford Dining Hall, where delegates will be encouraged to sit with people they don’t know, and work together to complete a quiz, with prizes for the winners.

On the second evening we will have a barbeque, which will feature further opportunities for delegates to mix with each other through a series of activities designed to get everyone chatting, and mingling, and to increase their own professional networks – and there may more healthy competition thrown in for good measure. The barbeque will be held early in the evening, giving everyone the opportunity to explore the campus or town under their own steam later on, should they wish to.

IWMW 2017 Deadline is Fast Approaching!

We hope the IWMW 2017 event will appeal to those who work in institutional web and digital teams or those who have wider interests in the use of online technologies in higher education. If you’d like to read more about the event the following blog posts are available:

• IWMW 2017: Summary of the Plenary Talks
• IWMW 2017: The Workshops and Master Classes
• Host Institutions for IWMW Participants (and a Survey for Non-Participants!)
• IWMW17 Sessions Beyond Traditional Web Management
• Overview of Speakers at IWMW Events
• Social Activities at IWMW 2017

The event will be held at the University of Kent on 11-13 July and costs £400 for 3 days, which includes 2 nights’ accommodation, meals and social events.

Online booking is available – but please note that the closing date is Friday 1 July. Book soon!

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Host Institutions for IWMW Participants (and a Survey for Non-Participants!)

About This Post

“Individually we are strong. Together we are stronger.“

Recent IWMW events have attracted participation from across the length and breadth of mainland UK. But not all institutions are represented at the event, the annual Institutional Web Management Workshop, which was established 21 years ago to support those with responsibilities for managing institutional web services and, in recent years, has extended its remit to cover digital services beyond web sites.

This blog post introduces a survey which aims to address those who do not attend IWMW events in order to discover the reasons for this – the survey is available at the URL bit.ly/iwmw-attendee-survey .  Surveying non-attendees at an event is clearly not easy – how do we find these people? We hope that IWMW attendees will be willing to share information about the survey – and to incentivise completion of the survey those who complete the form will be entered into a draw for a small gift.

Background

A recent post on Profiling Speakers and Facilitators at IWMW 2017 described the range of speakers and workshop facilitators at the forthcoming IWMW 2017 event. We seem to have achieved our goal of encouraging speakers from a wide range of institutions, attracting new speakers and encouraging participation from female members of the community. As can be seen from the speaker list on the IWMW 2017 web site there are :

• 19 plenary speakers; 15 workshop facilitators and 12 master class facilitators.
• 6 session chairs
• A total of 42 individual speakers, facilitators or session chairs.
• 12 female (20%) speakers, facilitators or session chairs and 30 males (80%), including 6 female (32%) plenary speakers.
• 25 who currently work at a higher education institution; 4 who work for a higher education agency; 10 who work for a company and 3 who are individual consultants.
• Of the 14 plenary speakers who work at a university 10 are first-time speakers at the event, which includes 4 who are also first-time attendees at an IWMW event.

The post concluded by saying:

there are only a limited number of speaking slots available at IWMW events, so we will not be able to provide too great a geographical diversity of speakers. There are, of course, many more places for delegates at IWMW events and this is where we are seeking to ensure that members of web management teams across the community are aware of the event and willing to attend – and if they do not wish to attend we want to understand the reasons for this. This will be explored in a forthcoming blog post.

This post looks at the host institutions for participants from the higher education sector at IWMW events in 2015, 2016 and 2017 (to date).

Host Institutions for Participants from the Higher Education Sector

Attendee data for IWMW 2015 and IWMW 2016 together with the current bookings for IWMW 2017 has been analysed in order to determine the location of the host institution for delegates who work at a higher education institution.

It seems that so far delegates from about 60 institutions have attended events in recent years or will attend this year’s event.

A Google Map of the locations is available and is illustrated. As can be seen participants from across England and Scotland have attended recent IWMW events, although there have been none from the two institutions in Northern Ireland and only two Welsh institutions are represented.

Growing The Community

The mission statement of the Midlands Innovation group is “Individually we are strong. Together we are stronger.” This could apply equally to many groups within the higher education sector – and particularly at a time in which the sector is facing many significant challenges (I am writing this post on the morning of the general election!(.

The IWMW event was established in 1997 to foster collaboration and sharing and continues to emphasise the importance of the community.  It is pleasing to see that attendance at the event spans the length and breadth of mainland UK and is not restricted to those located near to the recent events (IWMW 2015 and 2016 were held in Edge Hill University and Liverpool John Moores University) and IWMW 2017 will be held at the University of Kent. But what barriers may there be to engaging with the community and learning from one’s peers? Such barriers could include:

• Financial barriers to attending events
• Topics covered at events are not relevant
• Length of the event
• Location of the event
• Time of event
• Lack of management support
• Preference for other events
• Preference for online events
• Use of online community tools (e.g. Jiscmail and HE-digital Slack channel, announced in February 2017)
• Belief that we in competition with other institutions
• Other reasons

In order to explore reasons for non-participation in IWMW events an online survey form has been created. The form also explores interests for other ways of community working such as regional groups (described by Duncan Ireland in a blog post on “The Life and Times of the Scottish Web Folk Regional Group“) and alternatives to IWMW events, such as commercial events. The survey is available at the URL bit.ly/iwmw-attendee-survey – feel free to share this URL with others.

Profiling Speakers and Facilitators at IWMW 2017

Overview

There are over 40 speakers and workshop facilitators at the forthcoming IWMW 2017 event. But what are the characteristics of the people willing to stand up in public and share their thoughts on best practices for providing institutional web services and other large-scale digital channels?

As can be seen from the speaker list on the IWMW 2017 web site there are currently:

• 19 plenary speakers; 15 workshop facilitators and 12 master class facilitators.
• 6 session chairs
• A total of 42 individual speakers, facilitators or session chairs.
• 12 female (20%) speakers, facilitators or session chairs and 30 males (80%), including 6 female (32%) plenary speakers.
• 25 who currently work at a higher education institution; 4 who work for a higher education agency; 10 who work for a company and 3 who are individual consultants.
• Of the 14 plenary speakers who work at a university 10 are first-time speakers at the event, which includes 4 who are also first-time attendees at an IWMW event.

Speaker Profiles on Lanyrd

Information about the speakers and facilitators is also available on the speaker list of the Lanyrd page for the IWMW 2017 event. Note that due to technical problems with the Lanyrd site this information has not yet been finalised. However this speaker list provides a number of additional benefits as speakers can choose to make use of the social aspect of the Lanyrd service to provide details of other events they have spoken at or participated in.

Use of a speaker identifier (their LinkedIn or Twitter profile) also enables it to be possible to identify speaker communities (groups who may speak at the same events). An example can be seen below which is taken from the speaker profile for Rich Prowse, Head of Digital at the University of Bath and a member of the IWMW 2017 advisory group.

As can be seen if you are impressed by a speaker you can view their forthcoming speaking appearances; their profiles on services such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, etc.; their previous events and details of previous talks, including slide shows, write-ups and video recordings. This service can be useful in helping to build a network of one’s peers.

Location of Speakers

The location of the host institution of the speakers and workshop facilitators is available on Google Maps for those who are based at a higher educational institution. As can be seen the speakers are:

• From across England, Scotland and Wales
• From the University of Dundee in the north; the University of Southampton in the south, Cardiff University in the east and the University of Kent in the south

Developing the Range of Speakers and Facilitators

The IWMW event was launched in 1997 and from that date until 2013 was held annually as a core-funded delivery by UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management based at the University of Bath. UKOLN was funded by the Jisc and the core funding required UKOLN to ensure that the event was aligned with the interests of Jisc’s Future team.

Following Jisc’s cessation of funding for UKOLN the event was re-launched in 2014 we have sought to align the event more closely with the needs of those with responsibilities for providing institutional web and related digital services, with regular online meetings being held with members of the IWMW 2017 advisory group. In addition to identifying key areas to be addressed at the event we have sought to encourage active participation widely across the sector and encourage new speakers at the event. We have also tried to avoid organising yet another technical event which consists of largely men-only speakers. We feel that we have largely succeeded in achieving those goals. We appreciate that there is a need to continually monitor the profile of the speaker community at IWMW events, so we intend to carry out such analyses for future IWMW events.

However there are only a limited number of speaking slots available at IWMW events, so we will not be able to provide too great a geographical diversity of speakers. There are, of course, many more places for delegates at IWMW events and this is where we are seeking to ensure that members of web management teams across the community are aware of the event and willing to attend – and if they do not wish to attend we want to understand the reasons for this. This will be explored in a forthcoming blog post.

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Note: This post was originally published on the IWMW blog on 7 June 2017.

IWMW 2017: The Workshops and Master Classes

IWMW 2017

A recent post published on this blog summarised the plenary sessions at the IWMW 2017 event which will be held at the University of Kent on 11-13 July. The theme of this year’s event, the 21st Institutional Web Management Workshop event, is “It’s The End Of The Institution As We Know It (And We Feel Fine)“.

The Plenary Talks

The plenary talks provide an opportunity to hear about how institutions are responding to the significant challenges currently facing the higher education sector (in the opening session on “The End Of The World?“); learning from how institutions are addressing governance issues (in the session on “We Feel Fine (Governance Issues)“) and from the development of tools and use of technologies (in the session on “We Feel Fine (Tools and Technologies)“); the importance of understanding our user experiences (in the session on “We Feel Fine (Understanding Our Users)“); working with organisations from beyond the HE community (in the session on “We Feel Fine (Working With The Wider Sector) ” and, in the final session on “We Feel Fine (The Core Community)” revising approaches to support the core communities of academics, students and web providers.

However those who find active participation in events a more effective way of learning new professional development skills and consolidating existing practices will appreciate the workshop sessions and master classes at the event.

Workshop Sessions

There will be a total of 12 workshop sessions, which will last for 90 minutes. Participants will be able to attend one of the workshop sessions.

Six of the workshops cover core activities for those providing web and other digital services including User Testing – A Toolkit; Creat[ing] Effective Content Quickly With Pair Writing; Making Web and Digital Work For Your Students; A Practical Guide to How We Built a Self-Documenting Digital how to buy antibiotics in japan Pattern Library; Reviving the University of Kent Online Brand and Web 101.

Another three of the workshops cover new areas and innovative technologies: Marketing Open Research: Social Media and Quantitative Metrics; The Sixty Minute (Data Dashboard) Makeover – in 1 hour 30 minutes! and Open Campus – Using Virtual Tours to Engage With ALL Your Audiences.

Finally three workshops provide opportunities for learning from the wider community with sessions facilitated by those who work outside higher educational institutions: EA (Enterprise Architecture) in an Agile Context; Data: The Most Untapped Resource in your Student Retention Strategy and How To Be A Productivity Ninja.

Master Classes

The master classes were introduced at IWMW 2015 and, due to popular demand, were repeated at IWMW 2016. The master classes provide additional time to address a subject area of relevance to those with responsibilities for managing institutional web services and other digital channels. This year there will be a total of 9 master classes, which will last for 2.5 hours. Participants will be able to attend one of the master class sessions.

The titles of this year’s master classes are:

• Working in an Agile way – Content Creation, Delivery and Standards (Redux)
• Social Media & Paid Advertising- How to Use Them Corporately
• A Communications Infrastructure for the UK HE Digital Community
• Leadership, Governance and Change: Top Tips for Navigating the Chaos
• IWMW in Miniature
• AI and Data: Evolving the Student Experience
• A Roundtable Discussion: How Do You Start Without Knowing Where You’re Going?
• Transition to WordPress
• Search “More than Ten Blue Links”

Booking Your Place

Attendance at the IWMW 2017 event costs £400 which includes two night’s accommodation, attendance at talks and parallel sessions, the conference dinner, a social event and teas and coffees. Please visit the registration page to book your place.

IWMW 2017 Open For Bookings

A recent post announced that the “IWMW 2017 Programme [was] Available“. The post described how “IWMW 2017, the annual Institutional Web Management Workshop, will be held at the University of Kent on 11-13 July. This year’s theme is “It’s The End Of The Institution As We Know It (And We Feel Fine)“.  The post went on to summarise the various sessions which will address this theme.

I’m pleased to announce that online bookings for the event are now open.

The cost of the event is £400, which includes full attendance at the event, accommodation for 2 nights, conference materials, refreshments and lunch, workshop dinner and social events. The costs for attendance without accommodation is £315.

Please visit the registration page for details on how to book a place at this event.

 

IWMW 2017 Programme Available

I am pleased to announce that the programme for the IWMW 2017 event is now available.

IWMW 2017, the annual Institutional Web Management Workshop, will be held at the University of Kent on 11-13 July. This year’s theme is “It’s The End Of The Institution As We Know It (And We Feel Fine)“. The plenary talks address the theme:

The End Of The World?: The opening afternoon consists of two plenary talks which address the challenges institutions currently face.

We Feel Fine (Governance Issues): The first morning session on the second day describes how institutions are addressing challenges through governance issues.

We Feel Fine (Tools and Technologies): The second morning session on the second day summarises tools and technologies being used to support large-scale institutional web services.<!–

We Feel Fine (Understanding Our Users): The afternoon topamax session on the second day explores how institutions can understanding the real student experience.

We Feel Fine (Working With The Wider Sector): The first morning session on the third day provides insights from the wider community.

We Feel Fine (The Core Community): The final session looks at the core communities we serve: staff and students and those those responsible for supporting those communities.

In addition to the plenary talks there are 12 workshop sessions on the first day and 9 master classes on the second day.

The cost of the event is £400, which includes full attendance at the event, accommodation for 2 nights, conference materials, refreshments and lunch, workshop dinner and social events. The cost for attendance without accommodation is £315.

Online registration for the event will be opened shortly is now open.

IWMW 2017: Call for Submissions Now Open!

I am pleased to announce that the call for submissions for the IWMW 2017 event is now open.

The IWMW 2017 event will be held at the University of Kent on 11-13 July 2017. This year’s event is the 21^st in the series, which was founded in 1997. This event is the longest-running event for university web teams around the world!

The theme of this year’s event is “It’s The End Of The Institution As We Know It (And We Feel Fine)“. The background to this theme is given below.

Today’s political and funding environment are adding additional challenges to the higher education community. In addition to the funding crisis dating back to 2008 institutions are now preparing for the implications of Brexit, further restriction on immigration and possible loss of EU sources of funding. “It’s the end of the institutions as we know it” we may feel.

And yet the higher education community has a well-established tradition of community and sharing and this is particularly true for those with responsibilities for delivering large-scale digital services, with the past 20 years of IWMW generic zithromax events providing valuable opportunities for sharing best practices, identifying technical innovations and organisational changes and learning from mistakes.

This year’s event will provide an opportunity to hear about significant changes and how institutions are responding to such changes. In addition sessions will cover best practices and institutional case studies.

The Call for Submissions provides further information about the submission process.

Note that as well as submissions for those working in institutional web and digital teams, we also welcome submissions from those who are involved in institutional strategies and planning where this will affect the provision of digital services.

We also welcome submissions from members of user communities, including students and researchers.

The call for submissions will remain open until 1 March 2017. However we encourage early submissions in order that we can spot any gaps in the range of topics submitted.

If you would like to discuss a possible submission feel free to contact Brian Kelly or Claire Gibbons, the IWMW 2017 co-chairs, or a member of the IWMW 2017 advisory group.

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Note this post was originally published on the IWMW blog.