One year on and we are still scratching our heads, trying to work out just what we need a Social Networking Policy to cover, why we need it, and exactly who it needs to protect. Social Networking presents lots of opportunities in the areas of teaching and learning, student recruitment, alumni relations and collaboration, as well as exposing the University to a variety of risks and new challenges. This session will explore the risks and opportunities we are faced with, and will try to establish some of the issues we need to safeguard against. It may even provide some answers for institutions who are still thinking about creating a policy, just starting the process, or those burying their heads in the sand...a bit like some senior management! The session was facilitated by Debbie Nicholson and Keith Brooke University of Essex.

Web content is increasingly produced by authors without extensive web design skills - whether by staff using CMSs, VLEs and courseware or by students publishing their coursework online. The challenge of making sure this content is as accessible as possible becomes much more significant, and inevitably a burden on the individual or institution. The quality of the authoring tool in supporting accessible content creation becomes critical - however support for the W3C's Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) by authoring tool vendors seems to be seen as a specific (and usually low priority) customer request rather than a fundamental quality of the tool. For institutions considering selecting a VLE, CMS or other tool that supports web content publication, how can they best express accessibility requirements so that the tool takes its share of responsibility for accessible output? And if existing tools fall short of ATAG conformance, how can the effect of this on the accessibility of content best be managed? The session was facilitated by David Sloan, University of Dundee.

This session will go on a whistlestop tour of some of the new developments made for the March 2008 relaunch of Edge Hill's corporate Web site. See what a small, centralised Web team can deliver without a 1 million pound CMS! More buzzwords than you can shake a stick at and not afraid to get technical. The session was facilitated by Mike Nolan, Edge Hill University.

Dan Smith, The University of Southampton will use his experience of rolling out a successful Web CMS to help attendees with potential problems.

Phil Wilson, University of Bath will consider how Google's famous for it, Flickr's moved to Gamma, Moo are on an eternal 1.0 - yet still in institutions we plod on with a tired, slow-moving and opaque process for developing and enhancing applications. From our closed support lines to official notices on unread Web sites and applications mysteriously changing in front of a user's very eyes we look staid and tedious. But it doesn't have to be like that, we could be fast faced and interactive - but at what cost? Continuity? Uptime?

George Neisser, University of Manchester, gave a talk entitled "WWW Caching".

Dave Lomas, University of Salford, gave a talk entitled "WebTools".

Brenda Lowndes, University of Liverpool, gave a talk entitled "WWW / Database Integration".

John MacCulloch, UKERNA, gave a talk entitled "Networking For Webmasters.

Mark Cox, UKWeb, gave a talk entitled "Security and Performance Issues".

Colin Work, University of Southampton, gave a talk entitled "Information Flow".

David Murie, University of Dundee, gave a talk entitled "Charisma or camel? A sociotechnical approach to Web redesign".

Brian Kelly, UKOLN, University of Bath, gave talks entitled "Introduction" and "Next Year's Web".

Paul Squires studied Film Studies and Information Technology at the University of North London and continued there as a lecturer and researcher into Web technologies. He joined the British Council in January of this year as the Webmaster. Paul gave a talk entitled "The British Council on the Web: An Overview".

Following a brief stint as a librarian in Dublin, Colin joined the NISS project in 1988 later moving to Southampton University Computing Services where he became embroiled in information services in the widest sense - from telephone systems to information kiosks. As "Information Resources Manager" Colin heads up the Southampton Webmaster team. He has been active in a range of National activities and is currently a member of UCISA-TLIG. Colin wants to be a photographer when he grows up. Colin gave a talk entitled "Publish and be Damned? - Freedom, Responsibility and AUP".

Paul Booth is involved in the design, and administration of the DISinHE web site. His main interests lie in the Internet and its application. He is interested in ways of applying Internet technology while maintaining administration of the accessibility to all - without loosing visual appeal or technical prowess. Paul is the author of several award winning web sites, including "The Scotsman" newspaper's "Most Sussed" website has had involvement in writing sites for academic departments, students unions, commercial business and even an Access Centre. Paul gave a talk entitled "Accessibility".

Brian Kelly is employed as "UK Web Focus" - a national web coordination post. Brian is based at UKOLN, University of Bath. Brian has been involved in web activities since January 1994 when he was involved in setting up the institutional web service at Leeds University. Brian gave a talk entitled "Deploying New Web Technologies".

Terry Brown has worked in the Faculty of Medicine Computing Centre since completing a work placement with them and then being hired to develop the University's WWW Student Support and Tutoring project. He has since added UNIX system administration skills to WWW programming and site design. His professional interests lie within the field of dynamic information delivery, Human Computer Interaction and secure Internet information transfer. His personal interests involve anything that can keep him away from technology for long enough to forget about it. Terry gave a talk entitled "'The Use of Online Databases to Manage Student Support and Learning".

After studying Applied Psychology and then Cognitive Science and Intelligent Computing, Stephen Emmott went on to lecture in both Artificial Intelligence and Psychology. After two academic years he ventured into the commercial world with jobs in the emerging 'New Media' industry: Easynet, Cyberia, Netmare and finally Webmedia where he spent his last year as project manager for Which? Online. He joined King's College London as Web Editor in September 1997 and is currently exploring content management using XML. Stephen gave a talk entitled "Events Online".

Nick is an Information Systems developer based in the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies in the University of Manchester. His role is to develop (mostly Web) applications to support teaching and administration. Nick gave a talk entitled "'He left the course 3 months ago?' - Web front-ends to student databases".

Jon Wallis is Webmaster at the University of Wolverhampton, responsible for the overall design and general management of its website. He has been directly involved in developing the University's web presence from its inception. In 1995 he co-developed the first complete undergraduate prospectus on the web. In his spare time he is a senior lecturer in computing, teaching in the areas of networks, communications and distributed information systems. His research focusses on search engine technology and (inspired by his role as an institutional webmaster) the information management implications of corporate websites. Jon gave a talk entitled "Information Management & The Institutional Website: Promoting & Supporting Organisational Change".

Victoria has worked at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory since 1989, and was one of the first pioneers of the web within the laboratory. She is currently corporate web manager, and departmental web manager, and is involved in a number of web-related projects including the DataWeb project to be described at the workshop. Victoria gave a talk entitled "DataWeb: Three worlds collide".

Between 1986 and 1990 Paul Browning was an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. In 1991 he was appointed as Computer Officer in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. In 1997 he was the Information Strategy Co-ordinator, University of Bristol. Paul gave a talk entitled "Publishing and Devolving the Maintenance of a Prospectus".

Andrew Aird studied music at Birmingham University and King's College, London. Working at Loughborough University in the early 1980s gave him access to personal computer technology, resulting in a career in music technology. Andrew specialised in applications for composing and publishing, and this aspect led him to become interested in the possibilities offered by the World Wide Web. His current role as Web Site Manager at Goldsmiths College is part-time; he also develops web solutions for music publishers, composers and performers. Swimming, skiing, concerts and visual art fill the scarce hours not spent thinking about, or working on, the web. Andrew gave a talk entitled "Does Web Content Grow On Trees?".

Brian Lantz, after a background in environmental and local politics in Arizona, came to London in 1975 to qualify as a librarian. Captivated by the dream of 'cycling Europe', he was lured by the brilliant summers in the latter half of the 70s into staying. He hung up his bicycle in 1982 after moving to Birmingham where he had risen through the ranks to Assistant Director of Information Services. His current role as 'Webmaster' focuses strongly on developing web based services to support marketing and teaching/learning at UCE. For his sins, he also created and runs the bookshop cum library supply services of UCE Books. Brian Lantz, University of Central England (UCE), gave a talk entitled "Dumbing Down".

Steven Warburton will discuss how the notion of community continues to be recognised as a fundamental aspect within descriptions of shared human activity and group bonding. In his socio-cultural analysis of the work place Wenger defined a particular type of communion, which he termed a community of practice (CoP). The concept of a CoP has been somewhat abused in current literature yet it does provide valuable insights into how communities evolve, behave and sustain themselves. By elaborating dimensions of community such as shared practice, dialogue, legitimate peripheral participation and negotiation of boundaries, Wenger has provided a model that can be applied to a number of differing groups of activity. This talk will explore what we can draw from the work on CoPs, in terms of the role and identity of institutional web manager, one that is inseparable from a field of practice that remains dynamic, fluid and under constant negotiation.

Chris Young, Netskills, University of Newcastle and Paul Trueman, Netskills, University of Newcastle will be looking at accreditation systems. You may be new to a Web-role or you may be more experienced, with a set of useful skills. Either way, increasingly there is a need for recognised individual development and accreditation in order to progress in within your organisation and with your own career.

Keith Doyle, University of Salford will facilitate this session. A small group of people are working towards setting up a peer group to share good practise and knowledge. In this session, there will be the opportunity for delegates working to develop University Intranets to share their thoughts on developments around intranets and portals. We will also discuss how the peer group could develop.

In December 2005 the Web Development team at the University of Bath set up a departmental wiki where they could keep track of information. In this workshop Philip Wilson, University of Bath will explain the reasons for using a wiki, not just for education but for codifying knowledge and working practices in departments and how they can best be utilised so that it is used by everyone in the department, and how to stop it becoming an unmaintained silo of archaic data.

Debbie Nicholson, Web Support Officer, University of Essex will show how putting quality measures in place can prevent getting a brief for a Web design job that reads "not blue, a bit random, and not too Scottish". Don't laugh, this actually happened! This hands on session will get participants thinking about how they can introduce quality assurance procedures within the web design process. It will cover establishing a 'quality loop', creating measurable standards and will introduce ways to enable clients to be better informed about what they want from their new Web site.

IWMW 13: Institutional Web Management 2009, held at the University of Essex on 28-30 July 2009

IWMW 3: Institutional Web Management: The New Steps, held at Goldsmiths College, London on 7-9 September 1999

IWMW 2: Institutional Web Management Workshop, held at Newcastle University on 15-17 September 1998

IWMW 1: Running An Institutional Web Service, held at Kings College London on 16-17 July 1997