This two day workshop will discuss the key challenges faced by Higher Education websites in 2009. Taking place in the heart of rural Hampshire, topics will include effectively managing and writing content, making your website more user centric and implementing the new accessibility guidelines.
Workshop outline
The workshop will take place over two days and consist of five sessions, each two hours long.
Four of the sessions will be topic based (as outlined below), while the fifth session will be an open discussion tackling any issues to arise over the previous sessions. This final session will also be an opportunity to review some of the attendees sites.
The four structures sessions will tackle the following topics:
- Writing effective content - Most HE websites have vast amounts of content written by larger numbers of contributors. How do we ensure the quality of this copy and present a single unified voice? This discussion will focus on subjects like site personas and writing for the web.
- Managing your content - Many institutions hate their content management system. However, often it is not the technology that is the problem so much as the implementation. This session will address issues of training, content migration and managerial issues surrounding content.
- Becoming a user centric institution - We all pay lip service to usability and yet many HE sites are complex and hard to use. How do we ensure usability lies at the heart of everything we do and what practical steps can be taken to make our existing sites more welcoming to users.
- Pragmatic accessibility - The release of WCAG 2 has made many of us rethink our approach to accessibility. How will WCAG 2 change the accessibility landscape and what accessibility improvements can be made within limited budget and resources? Most of all, how can accessibility become central to the culture of our institutions?
Where and when?
The workshop will take place on the 8th and 9th of October (running from midday to 1PM the following day) at the offices of Headscape Ltd. in the beautiful village of Lockerley Hampshire. Accommodation will be provided for the night of the 8th at White Horse hotel in Romsey.
The price includes: Transport to and from Southampton Parkway train station, Continental buffet breakfast and a 3 course evening meal. (Drinks are not included).
Who will be facilitating?
The workshop is being hosted by Headscape Ltd, who have worked extensively within the Higher Education sector for the past 7 years.
The sessions will be primarily facilitated by Paul Boag, author of the Website Owners Manual and host of the Boagworld podcast on web design. As well as speaking at conferences such as the Future Of Web Design New York and SXSW, Paul has also spoken several times at the Institutional Web Managers Workshop.
Who can attend?
The 2 day workshop is open to anybody involved in the running of a Higher Education website.
If you are responsible for your institutions website and would like to attend, please complete the registration form below. We will then confirm if a place is available within 48 hours.
