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Whose Site Is It Anyway? The Web Editor’s Career

Explore the challenges and strategies for getting a job as a web editor, managing the job effectively, being supported by your institution, and becoming a professional in the industry.

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Whose Site Is It Anyway? The Web Editor’s Career

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  1. Whose Site Is It Anyway?The Web Editor’s Career • Getting A Job • Job titles and descriptions • Managing The Job • Institutional models • Being Supported • Advice, guidance and training • Being A Professional • Professional organisations

  2. Getting A Job • Brief survey of job ads • Wide range of job titles • No real consensus of title • Wide pay scales • Do the employers know what they want? • ‘kitchen sink’ job descriptions • Do we have to define our own job descriptions for them?

  3. Getting A Job • Titles ranged from • Website managers • Web officer • Could this be formalised, as a community, defining these roles? • By generating a list of skills for each member of the team • Or surveying current posts

  4. Getting A Job • Roles to be found in • PR, Computing Services, Libraries • Suffer from a feeling of institutional isolation • Solution • We need to structure the teams so that they not affiliated to any existing structures

  5. Getting A Job • Head of web team • Someone who can wave the ‘big stick’ at university management • Effective and powerful voice within the institution. • Putting learning on the agenda • Recommendations • Survey of current web teams posts/ salary/ contracts etc...

  6. Managing The Job • Who to work for? • Should be independent • Not keen on placing them because of bias towards one section • Who holds the budget? • Should be a budget holder so they don’t have to go cap in hand

  7. Managing The Job • Ideal team • Web editor (reporting to executive committee) heading up team • Designers • Support (check HTML write/read English) • Have a team of information providers in schools/depts (responsible for maintenance) but editor should be proactive in getting content.

  8. Managing The Job • Who are the clients • Not just working to please one section/dept • Meeting the needs of the clients of the university • Importance of what the clients need

  9. Managing The Job • Trying to serve all our masters with one site. • Recommendations • Cash incentives for surveys • Lay down the structure of teams • Observation • Talk to library people about how people use information services

  10. Managing The Job • Get together with people in the university to decide what you need to do, break down into manageable chunks and get some quick wins. • Strategy • Be integral. You should have a voice in the main University business.

  11. Being Supported • Problem • Structure of institution such that don’t fit in and often out on a limb without any support structures • Solution • The way you decide to develop the web and where it’s placed would help solve other problems (i.e. integrating into publicity) • Needs management who knows about the particular needs of the job • Setting up professional groups that deal with standards

  12. Being Supported • Problem • A lack of specific training [different training for each role (designer, editor etc)] • Solution • National accreditation • Regional groups • Mailing lists • Newsgroups • Exchanging ideas with a receptive audience

  13. Being Supported • Problem • Status position of senior staff to the web people is poor because of a lack of knowledge • Solutions • Management needs to know and understand and make sure the you’re aligned with the key business of the University • Senior managers need to approach HoDs to impress upon their staff

  14. Being Supported • The Web is a part of all university strategies • Develop measures of success (if possible!) • Useful for information management to keep this data • How useful something is • like putting up basic contact details and see how that’s changed people a few months later • Treat people that you’re working with as your internal market • Need to sell yourself and your services

  15. Being A Professional • What to professional bodies to • Sets standards and promotes them • Creating generic job specs and skills sets for membership • Define what the community does and raises the awareness of the post [raising awareness of members capabilities/skills and importance] • Disseminates special interest groups/information about events/ professional qualifications (CPD)

  16. Being A Professional • What to professional bodies to • Provide a sense of a wider community • Personal development • New developments • Salaries survey/trends in the area/discounts for services. • Defining/Publicising the community/Current Awareness/Professional Development/Special Interest Groups.

  17. Being A Professional • Who they are • USA based global organisations (very technical groups) • Useful for a UK body to affiliate to • UK bodies something like the Institute for Information Sciences talking to the libraries about a differently named organisations • Other bodies exist • Computing, Marketing/PR

  18. Being A Professional • What do we want • Regional groups (sound people out) • Distance learning courses CPD/Accreditation • Current awareness of new services and peoples experiences of trying them • Outside expertise • Special interest groups • Letters after name (but they offer so much more) • Professional qualifications could cut across confusing job titles

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