Web Services Reorganization Proposal

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Web Services

Reorganization

Proposal

Web Services Team (WST)

Organization and Staffing

V1, March 25, 2004

Melanie Haveard, Chief Technology Officer Spike Henning, Web Coordinator

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1. Purpose

The purpose of this document is to present a vision for the architecture and capabilities of UWF’s official web sites and identify the organization, staffing and division of

responsibilities necessary to achieve the goals of the Web Services Reorganization.

2. Vision

The vision of the Web Services Reorganization is for UWF to present a polished, professional, comprehensive, state-of-the-art web presence that effectively markets to external audiences and provides intuitive access to information and applications for an internal audience of students, faculty and staff users. To achieve this vision UWF will offer two primary web sites to address the needs of these two very distinct audiences; the externally focused UWF.EDU web site (http://uwf.edu) and the internally focused Argus portal web site. External users are those Internet visitors who do not yet have an

affiliation with UWF. Internal visitors are defined as those users who already have an affiliation with the university (students, faculty, staff, alumni) such that they have a set of credentials with which they can log in to the Argus Portal.

The UWF.EDU web site, which currently serves both internal and external audiences, will be redesigned to exclusively target external users and will focus on emphasizing attributes identified as core strengths of UWF. The site will be a polished marketing tool that presents curriculum, faculty, research, recreational and regional information that makes users want to come here as a student, faculty or staff. The site design will be optimized to make it easy for users to find targeted core strength information and to ensure search engines index the site so that users specifying key words related to the core strengths will be directed to UWF.EDU by the search engines. To inspire confidence in users considering UWF as a distance learning resource, or just to make sure that Internet visitors form a positive first impression, the performance and reliability of UWF.EDU must be exceptional. The layout and design must be world class, the navigation logical and reliable and the information accurate, informative and professionally edited.

Once here as an internal user, the type of information needed changes based on the nature of the user's relationship(s) as a student, faculty, staff and/or alumni. The Argus portal web site will provide role-based targeted information and access to a rich selection of paperless business applications needed by students, faculty and staff. (Additional phases of Argus will include prospective students, alumni, and other “friends” of the University.) The Internal users will have credentials allowing them to log into the Argus portal, which will determine the nature of their relationship and present easy, logical access to

appropriate applications and information.

Colleges, departments and organizations will maintain their own web sites (departmental sites) to provide expansive department specific information. Often, a link in a portal channel will direct the user to a menu on a departmental site presenting information, or providing drill down access to more detailed information. As these departmental sites are accessed through the portal and represent UWF on the Internet, the aesthetics and

navigation need to be appear as professional as and provide navigation consistent with UWF.EDU and the portal.

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The polished, professional web presence described above can only exist through the efforts of a similarly professional support team possessing a wide range of web related expertise. The services provided by the support organization include:

A. University and departmental web design and development

B. University and departmental programming of dynamic web based software C. Content management and maintenance services

D. Graphic design (for web) services

E. Search Engine registration and results monitoring F. Web Statistics reporting

G. Infrastructure support

H. Support for non-traditional browsing tools, including wireless devices.

3. Current

Web

Architecture

UWF's current web architecture for providing information and applications consists primarily of the main UWF web site (http://uwf.edu) and the NAUTICAL supported Intranet site (http://nautical.uwf.edu). The NAUTICAL Intranet site serves targeted audiences via the LightHouse, COMPASS, Crew's Control and FirstMate web sites, each of which reside on the NAUTICAL web server and rely on a common set of

infrastructure services provided by the NAUTICAL architecture. Prospective students are served by LightHouse, current students by COMPASS and faculty and staff by Crew's Control for work related applications and FirstMate for pay and personal information applications. All of the applications on the Intranet site are enterprise applications developed by ITS. Some departments have developed their own business or academic applications which reside on UWF.EDU. The distribution of applications and information on multiple web sites has caused user confusion as it is not always clear to users where they need to go to access information, forms and applications. Also, external users are sometimes confused as a result of being confronted with applications not intended for them. The current architecture of UWF.EDU is a carry-over from its predecessor where department, organization and personal web pages all reside on the same server, only one directory below the main (root) directory.

4. Road

Map

The Road Map to achieve the vision outlined above involves extensive work on UWF.EDU and departmental web sites and the portal as well as the infrastructure that supports those sites and ancillary services that support and monitor their effectiveness. To ensure that the web site architecture and infrastructure is based on a solid foundation that provides scalability, extensibility and robust performance, consulting services will be used to assist with the initial design for these critical components and potentially some of the implementation effort. The following categorized actions are required to achieve the vision.

Web Sites

A. Work with departmental web contacts to develop prioritized list of characteristics or topics for which UWF should be known. This list will evolve over time as new programs are introduced or other significant changes

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occur at UWF. Consequently, this evaluation must reoccur to keep the web site up-to-date.

B. Acquire the services of an SEO (search engine optimization) consultant to assist with site design based on the web marketing strategy.

C. Redesign UWF.EDU as an externally focused marketing tool that specifically targets the characteristics in the web marketing strategy.

D. Complete Content Inventory identifying whether existing content and applications should be accessed internally, externally, or both. The Content Inventory is an effort to comprehensively examine all web-based

applications, pages, forms, etc. existing at UWF. As part of content

inventory, need to decide which high level things appear in portal channels and which are reached by a menu elsewhere.

E. Work with departmental web contacts to develop special interest, short term web presence for special events, etc.

Organization

A. Establish the Web Strategy Committee as a university standing committee, with one of its first business items to produce and/or endorse the web marketing strategy.

B. Establish the Web Services Team.

C. Identify the comprehensive list of web contacts throughout the University community.

D. Develop and document the coordination and communication processes between the Web Strategy Committee, Web Services Team, departmental Web Contacts and Portal Team.

E. Identify oversight authority and responsibility for prioritizing Web Services Team work with regard to UWF.EDU, Portal and

Departmental/Organizational design, development and maintenance activities.

Infrastructure

A. Separate UWF.EDU from personal web accounts and implement as a standalone web site pulling content from other sites on facstaff server as appropriate.

B. Create facstaff.uwf.edu web site for personal web sites.

C. Create a development UWF.EDU site and implement a code, test, promote development approach.

D. Establish policies and procedures for backup and recovery scenarios.

E. Establish a clustered web site platform to provide failover protection and load balancing. Initial evaluation and design of clustered environment will be accomplished with the assistance of a consultant.

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F. Upgrade web platforms to ColdFusion MX to take advantage of clustering and process/web site isolation allowing multiple web sites to be hosted on a single server while protecting each site from anomalies occurring on other sites.

G. Establish fail over protection for production database server.

Ancillary Services

Establish the necessary policies, procedures, and automated mechanisms to: A. produce web usage statistics reports for UWF.EDU and other UWF web

sites.

B. periodically review web site usages logs and evaluate site effectiveness in communicating core strengths to users and web crawlers indexing the site for search engines.

C. maintain process for ensuring UWF presence in paid search engine directories.

D. maintain UWF internal Web Search Service to facilitate quick location of internal information assets.

E. provide a rich set of Web Services to feed enterprise data to UWF consumers. F. perform periodic review of UWF web sites for ADA compliance.

G. perform usability testing for web sites and applications.

5. Web Services Team

As illustrated in Appendix A, the Web Services Team (WST) is one component of the overall UWF Web Support Organization. The WST manages and supports UWF’s web environment based on the guidelines set forth by the Web Strategy Committee. It is a collaboration of ITS and Marketing Communications staff. The WST works closely with the UWF web publishing community, primarily through its relationships with the web contacts representing each department and/or division.

Management of the Web Services Team will be accomplished by an existing position within ITS. Staffing requirements identified for each function will support maintaining the current level of support for web development (see appendix B) and increasing support for University/departmental web application development and improving infrastructure and support to provide services and capabilities not presently being provided. Appendix C is provided by Marketing Communications to identify current and proposed resources for its portion of the WST.

The goal of the reorganized web environment is to ensure the functions of web design, content management, web programming, web support, infrastructure support, and management oversight can be provided to all facets of the UWF web community. The section below gives a broad description of responsibilities assigned to each function. Appendix D illustrates the staffing (in both existing and new positions) required to

accomplish the action plan and maintain the desired level of support for each function. In the cases where the functionality is distributed to individuals throughout the University, the roles held by numerous individuals are listed.

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Work Group Responsibilities and Staffing

Web Design

a. Perform design activities in support of UWF.EDU and Argus portal.

b. Establish and document design standards regarding styles, colors and general aesthetics.

c. Perform design activities for other University web sites, departments, or organizations as directed by the Web Strategy Committee.

d. Perform web related graphics design as needed to support the main web site, Argus portal and other tasking. To ensure a consistent look and feel through UWF related web sites, graphics design services will be provided to a greater extent than other web related design activities for non-enterprise web sites.

Content Management

Content Management is defined as activities related to developing and formatting various types of information for display on the web. Often the information will require multiple display formats depending on where it is being displayed (portal channel, PDA, browser, etc.). Current content maintenance includes:

a. ECal - Event Calendar

b. Site Index - Alphabetical index of links, phone numbers, location, etc. for all web pages/areas, departments, organizations throughout the campus.

c. Pressroom - upkeep of press releases formatted for teaser display on main page and other pages for entire articles.

d. Expert/Speaker Guides - database of UWF speakers and technical experts.

Web Programming

Web Programming develops dynamic database centric web applications to support enterprise and departmental needs.

a. Develop and maintain enterprise class web applications and web service components accessible through portal channels and stand-alone applications. b. Develop and maintain departmental/organizational applications on an as-needed

basis as directed by the Web Strategy Committee.

Web Support / Internet Presence

a. Monitor feedback email accounts and phone calls and direct action requests to appropriate work group.

b. Produce statistical reports of web site activity for all supported sites.

c. Maintain and refresh UWF Search Engine providing in-house optimized search capability.

d. Perform recurring evaluation of UWF web site representation in major search engines.

e. Provide instruction to campus web developers in various techniques and technologies.

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f. Web Site/Application usability testing and quality assurance. g. Web Site/Application ADA compliance evaluation and monitoring.

Infrastructure Support

a. Provide platform support for all supported web sites

b. Monitor server performance and plan upgrades and enhancements as necessary. c. Maintain security precautions and patches as necessary to prevent servers from

being hacked or compromised in any way.

d. Provide redundancy and fail-over for all University data and web applications.

Web Services Team Management

a. Accept direction from Web Strategy Committee regarding utilitization of WST resources for *.UWF.EDU Web sites.

b. Coordinate with Web Contacts and Departmental Developers as necessary to assist with departmental needs.

c. Coordinate activities of WST to achieve the Web Services Reorganization Vision through the activities outlined in section 4 – Road Map.

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Appendix A

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Appendix B

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B-1

President's and Trustee's web sites - The President's (http://uwf.edu/president) and Trustee's (http://uwf.edu/trustees) sites require minor updates and new documents added occasionally.

User Input - Monitor email received via the [email protected] and [email protected] and take appropriate action. These accounts are referenced in multiple locations on the site for users to solicit changes or report problems. For example, the UWF site index pages direct users to reported needed changes or additions to the weblink email address. Often the email received from these accounts is a general question requesting contact information or site directions.

Maintenance Tasks

6. Web

Services

Responsibilities

Work performed by the Director of Web Marketing (DWM) in support of the UWF web site can be classified as either development or maintenance effort. Tasks related to keeping the UWF index, calendar, pressroom and similar pages up-to-date with current information, or making minor changes to a page is considered maintenance work whereas site/page redesign of any consequence is considered development work. The UWF web site is comprised of General pages and Departmental (Division, College, or

Departmental) specific web pages. General pages are the main page and mainly any non-departmental specific page linked to from the main page (index, pressroom, calendar, etc.). Only a few (4 - 6) hours a week are required for maintenance work. Development work accounts for the majority of time expended by the DWM. Development effort includes an annual redesign of the main UWF web site (General pages) and development services provided to various offices such as the Trustees (http://uwf.edu/trustees/

January 26, 2004

Expert/Speaker Guides - Indexes searchable by keyword and/or categories of individuals. Data for these applications is maintained by Marketing Communications by updating the associated Access database files and providing to the DWM. The DWM replaces the outdated files with the new ones. The applications are written in ASP (Active Server Pages). (Speaker - http://haas.uwf.edu/facindex/, Expert - http://haas.uwf.edu/facindex/) UWF Pressroom - The pressroom page is comprised of a framework page that "includes" a content page. Maintenance of the content page is performed by Marketing

Communications. The news insert component of the main page is maintained in the same fashion. (http://uwf.edu/uwfMain/press/)

UWF Calendar - The data in the calendar is pulled from NAUTICAL. This data is kept current automatically by departmental administrators making entries, or Marketing Communications making calendar entries. (http://uwf.edu/survey/calendar.cfm) UWF Site Index - The data for the site index is stored in an Access database which is updated via as web interface or by directly updating the database file.

Web Services Responsibility Transition

) and Office of the President (http://uwf.edu/president/), with Enrollment Services

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Development Tasks

UWF Web Site - UWF web site received stylistic updates for each of the last two years. Total effort required approximately three months per update to effect the changes. A fair bit of the total effort was expended obtaining consensus from campus web developers as a vehicle to encourage them to use the same images.

Enrollment Services - Expended approximately three months last year implementing a complete redesign of the site. A consultant redesigned the site and Enrollment Services requested the DWM implement the design.

Other sites - The DWM has also performed site redesigns and miscellaneous work for the Financial Aid Office and Multicultural Studies and Diversity.

7. Conclusion

Marketing Communications is already performing some of the maintenance actions required to maintain the UWF web site and some are more or less automatic as they feed from NAUTICAL data maintained by others. Picking up support for the WebLink and UWFMain email accounts will essentially complete the transition of maintenance tasks. Providing development support is the bigger issue. This level of support requires a substantial investment of time and talent from several people possessing a variety of skills including web design, graphics design and dynamic web site programming. The current DWM accomplished development support with her own web development expertise and the aid of a graphics designer and multiple student programmers. To complete transition of the UWF web support to Marketing Communications, recommend the following actions:

1. Marketing Communications assume support for the UWF Index. This requires DWM to establish an account in the administrative section for Marketing Communications and provide minimal training in its use.

2. Marketing Communications assume responsibility for monitoring the WebLink and UWFMain email accounts and responding to received email.

3. Responsibility for developing departmental/organizational web sites needs to be determined.

4. Assuming Marketing Communications is responsible for providing some level of support to departments/organizations for developing web sites, some overseer of requests needs to be identified and tasked with prioritizing requests. Marketing Communications needs to be staffed to provide whatever level of support is assigned.

5. All General UWF site capabilities should be consolidated under the UWFMain account/directory. Some components (Expert/Speaker search, Calendar), for various reasons, have been created under other directories.

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Appendix C

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Ops Web Position (pt) (Not filled to date) No Updates Pages Janice Cooper

Stephanie Clay Creative Director Yes Content/Writer/Editor Connie Marse

Ha Bui Graphic Designer Yes Web Designer Connie Marse

Janice Cooper Director of Communications Yes Strategy/Content Pat Crawford

Marketing Communication role: UWF Web Team member: Web Role: Reports to:

Jaimie Woodard Assistant Dir. of Communications No E-Cal Administrator Janice Cooper

Ops Web support (pt) No E-Cal support Jaimie

Woodard

Web Content Coordinator (ft) ? Liaison/Content Mgt. ?

Ops Web support (pt) No Uwf.edu support ?

Marketing Communications Web Support Team Organizational Charts (uwf.edu)

+ Scenario Two * Scenario One

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C-2

* Scenario One reflects the Marketing Communications organization chart and support staff currently provided to update and improve the University of West Florida uwf.edu Web site. All activities associated with updating the Web site are currently done outside current job descriptions and in addition to current responsibilities. This means that the Web site will be updated to fit current work schedules and priorities. Updating the entire site to conform with new university graphic and editorial standards could take up to five years under this scenario.

Note: Both options will require staff for ongoing maintenance of the Web site to comply with editorial and graphic standards and for updates.

+ Scenario Two reflects a Marketing Communications organizational chart and support staff option if university administration determines that revamping and updating uwf.edu is a top priority and would like it completed in less than two years and in phases. (Phase I-main uwf.edu site pages, Phase II-College and Departmental Web pages, Phase III-remaining pages). The site would be structured to have consistent navigation, graphics and content throughout.

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Appendix D

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Position Position Code

Dept Person name UWF.EDU Portal Enterprise Departmental *.uwf.edu Web Design

Graphics/Web Designer WD-1 MC Ha Bui x x

Web Designer WD-2 ITS new x x x

Content Management

Strategy/Content CM-1 MC Janice Cooper x

Content writer/editor CM-2 MC Stephanie Clay

ECal Administrator CM-3 MC Jamie Woodard x

Content Coordinator CM-4 MC new x

uwf.edu Support CM-5 MC new x

ECal Support CM-6 MC new x

Portal channel admins Application owners Content Providers and Responsible Parties Website Administrators Web Programming

Univ Developer/Mgr WP-1* ITS Spike Henning x x x

Univ Developer WP-2** ITS Laura Hiltabrand x x x

Univ/Dept Developer WP-3 ITS new x x x

Dept Developer WP-4 ITS new x

Website Administrators

Web Support/Internet Presence (and Ancillary services)

ITS Helpdesk WS-1 ITS HelpDesk x x x

UWF Web Support WS-2 ITS new x x x x

Infrastructure Support

ITS Engineer IS-1 ITS Erick Larin *** x x x x

ITS Engineer IS-2 ITS new x x x x

* Upgrade and salary adjustment ** salary adjustment

*** currently only a portion of Erick’s time is devoted to web services infrastructure.