Feature Article: Posted 12/18/01

Evolving a Web Site Team

by George Rogers

Learning from Past Experiences
Everybody doing there own thing. For good or bad, this is how most things start. Working in solitude gives a person limited exposure to different ways of doing things. The tools to do your work or solve problems are limited by your past experiences. I remember the one liners: a fresh eye, a different perspective, a new twist, is the glass half empty or half full, just to name a few.

When you change your work habits from working in solitude to an environment of becoming a team member the set of tools and past experiences begins to multiple exponentially. Having a team involved in a project will minimize the risk of doing something wrong because multiple people are looking at the project with different points of view.

Building an Internet Team
The team structure usually consist's of three groups: content development, systems development, and applications development. The Content Development group contains web authors which publish for one or more business units. Examples: Medical School, Internal Medicine, Dental Branch. The Network Systems group provides systems design, implementation and maintenance(this includes hardware and software). The Applications Development group provides security, user identification and authentication, database connectivity and migration. The network systems and applications development groups serve as centralized services for the business units.

"The goal of the system like this will let content developers work independently of the network systems and applications development group."

Content Development - Web Site Owner, Web Authors and Web Publishers
Web Site Owner - Serve as responsible party for all material being posted to the web site. Web site owner is the department head or its
designated representative. Will provide administration for its departmental web authors. Administrative tasks include granting server access to web authors.

Web Authors - Create web pages for utilizing editing software. They following standards, guidelines, web templates provided by business unit web team.

Web Publisher - Provides content management and approves content being posted to the web. Ensures web site is updated in a timely manner

Each business unit would develop its own web site team to supervise and police the content which the business unit is responsible for publishing. The web team becomes responsible for incorporating policies and standards into its web site by educating its web authors as to the policies, procedures and standards apply. The web team would follow standards, guidelines, web templates provided by designated authority.

The Goal
Over time, business unit web teams will organize web authors to create a web site that is professional in appearance, easy to maintain, cost effective to develop, easy to navigate, .

Over time, all employees, faculty and staff will be able to publish to the web by following established policies and standards.

University of Texas-Health Science Center at Houston
Office of Academic Computing
George J. Rogers - Web Site Content Coordinator
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