Keith Doyle, Salford University explains that the aim of information architecture is to improve the information ecology which is made up of the interaction between users, content and context. What is the process and methodology required to develop an information architecture? What are the key tools and enabling services which are required to implement information architecture? How is this process evolving at Salford? There will be a chance to look at the information architecture of institutional web sites, tips for improving the design of sub-sites, and we will look at and discuss real world examples.

Paul Kelly and William Mackintosh, University of York will discuss various web usage statistics packages.

Adrian Stevenson, Internet Services, The University of Manchester will be uploading extracts of video taken during IWMW, at the same time exploring the ease of use, advantages and pitfalls of the service. He will consider the benefits of sharing video via YouTube and aim to encourage delegates to upload their own video snippets during the conference.

Andrew Cormack, Richard Dunning and Andy Powell, Eduserv will investigate the relationships between institutional single sign-on, Athens, Shibboleth, the UK Access Management Federation and more recent developments like OpenID and CardSpace and will give participants an opportunity to ask questions of a panel of experts from the community.

A sponsors page containing details of the sponsorship packages available has now been set up. Interested parties should contact the organisers. [2006-08-24]

Information on members of the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2007 Advisory Group is now available [2006-10-23]

Bookings are now closed for the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2007. If you would like to put your details on a mailing list please contact events@ukoln.ac.uk or a member of the organising committee [2007-06-01]

Paul Boag has written a guest blog post for "Brian Kelly's UK Web Focus: Reflections On The Web" blog [2007-06-04]

Please note that the official closing time for IWMW 2007 is 13.00 on Wednesday 18 July 2007. [2007-07-07]

With the introduction of variable fees Universities have entered what education secretary Ruth Kelly called "a new era". Financial departments have had to find more creative ways to meet the sector's growing competitive demands and those working within universities have had to take a more business-like, customer-focused approach to many aspects of their work as they compete for students.

Paul Boag, from Headscape, considers how social participation is the cornerstone of the web 2.0 movement and has been spearheaded by sites such as digg.com. One of the underlying principles of these sites is that peer to peer recommendations carry more weight than those from either a search engine or from corporate advertising. The commercial sector has been quick to adopt this peer review mechanism with customer reviews and ratings. This talk proposes to explore how social participation can be applied to the process of recruiting new students and what lessons can be learnt from the approach adopted by the commercial sector. We will also look at what institutional barriers exist that prevent this approach and how these can be overcome.

Peter Reader, University of Bath explains that E-communications, e-marketing and social media are hot topics for university marketers and communicators, with old ideas of 'control' looking more and more unrealistic. Now the talk is of 'influence', viral marketing, students as customers, and of client management, with the web and web technologies seen increasingly as the university's most important marketing tools. So what are the challenges, and what are the issues with which marketers will face us? Expect more of "why" and "want" than of "how"!

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.

William Mackintosh, Web Manager, University of York and Damon Querry, Senior Web Development Officer, University of Newcastle upon Tyne will be looking at Search Technology within the University Environmen. The University of Newcastle upon Tyne has implemented a Google Search Appliance. The University of York is committed to the purchase of the Google Mini. The session will discuss the reasons for selecting these products and how they add value to an institution's Web site.

Duncan Davidson, Information Manager, University of Abertay Dundee and Donna Wilkinson, Information Specialist, University of Abertay Dundeed will look at their University's development plans, the related projects - University Portal and Information Architecture, where we have been, current work and the road ahead.

James Souttar has been part of the Precedent team since its inception in 1989. Prior to working at Precedent, he worked for the corporate identity specialists Wolff Olins. His area of expertise is branding and communications within the education sector specialising in working for universities: Cambridge University, Universities of Sheffield, Southampton and Reading, Oxford Brookes, Middlesex and Hertfordshire. James extensive experience has led him to be invited to write and lecture extensively on both sides of the Atlantic. For two years he was consultant lecturer at Central Saint Martins (now part of the University of the Arts). He also taught at the Lincoln College of Art (now part of the University of Lincoln) and Epsom School of Art. In addition, both he and a colleague were invited to give a week long charrette to the School of Communication at Virginia Commonwealth University. James gave a plenary talk on "Web 2.0 and Brand: Theory and Practice" and facilitated a workshop on "Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Support a Brand Focused Marketing Strategy".

Cameron Neylon commenced a joint appointment as Senior Scientist in Biomolecular Sciences at the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Facility, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in 2005. Since then, in collaboration with Jeremy Frey (University of Southampton) he has been involved in the development and optimisation of blog based electronic notebook systems for the biochemistry laboratories and the development of systems for monitoring and capturing data from the laboratory, the so-called 'Blogging Lab'. Through this work he has become a prominent member of the international community advocating the adoption of a more open approach to research practice. His group is currently moving to a fully Open Notebook approach where the research worker's laboratory notebook is made public as it being recorded. This process is being recorded and analysed in his Blog, Science in the Open. Cameron gave a plenary talk on "Science in the You Tube Age: How Web Based Tools are Enabling Open Research Practice".

James Currall has been employed in the University of Glasgow for almost 20 years. His main job currently is as Head of Learning Technology where he has overall responsibility for the University VLE. Previously he was the Director of Strategy and Planning in IT Services, where he interacted with archivists, librarians, information technologists, academics and university managers. James is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII), where he is developing applied research into information issues drawing on his service and strategic experience and also more theoretical work on the nature of digital objects and the problems associated with their management, security and retention. James gave a plenary talk on "The Tangled Web is but a Fleeting Dream ...but then again...".

Randy Metcalfe, OSS Watch and Brian Kelly, UKOLN gave a plenary on openess and the Web manager. Openness appears to be all the rage: open standards for interoperability, open source for software development and deployment, and open content for sharing knowledge. What brings these phenomena together is a commitment to openness. But how do colleges and universities engage with openness? And more particularly, what does it mean for institutional Web managers.

Kate Forbes-Pitt, Systems Manager, Web Services, London School of Economics will talk about aims aims to problematise the document, asking the following questions: what is a document? How does it impart information to its reader? Can it be replicated on screen? It proposes answers using the arguments of Hughes and King (1993) who contend that the document is a layered social artifact that exists to 'wrap' content. This 'wrapping' provides the reader with the knowledge they need in order to apply social rules to their reading of the document, and so become able to interpret its content. Some information systems writers argue that the need for social knowledge in a task negates the possibility of its automation. Following the logic of this argument, delivering a document (a container of rule) through the existing set of social rules that govern Web interaction, means that the full function of the electronically reproduced document becomes masked or confused. At best this makes the role of the document superfluous to its content, making the content difficult to interpret. At worst it makes the content incomprehensible to the user. This raises a further question: what purpose is served by reproducing documents online? Following from the above arguments, it is possible to argue that 'pure' content, rather than the imitation of printed paper, is likely to be a more successful way of imparting information through the Web.

Universities undertake research through a mesh of partnerships, collaborations and contractual relationships. Major research funding bodies, such as government departments, are increasingly encouraging their contractors to adopt formal quality assurance standards - such as ISO 9001:2000. If you haven't come across this already, you are likely to see it very soon! In this talk John Gilbey, Institute QA Manager, IGER discussed the impact of quality standards on the way Web resources - internal and external - are defined, delivered, managed and reviewed in academic environments. An over-view of the quality requirement is presented, along with some pragmatic suggestions to help you deal with it.

Chris Scott from Headscape gave a talk on "Real World Emerging Technologies". Falling University entries and top-up fees have contributed to a step-change in the operational environment for the HE sector. This change has resulted in an acute pressure on institutions to innovate for success. This presentation will explore some opportunities for institutions to capitalise on new and emerging web technologies in response to such changes. While there is much hype about Web 2.0, there are some genuine opportunities for straightforward applications of Web 2.0 technologies in institutions that are low risk and low cost, and have potential for significant returns if they are introduced and managed correctly and the right people are involved.

IWMW 15 Institutional Web Management Workshop 2011: Responding to Change held at the University of Reading on 26-27 July 2011

IWMW 14 Institutional Web Management Workshop 2010: The Web in Turbulent Times held at the University of Sheffield on 12-14 July 2010

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

IWMW 12: Institutional Web Management 2008: The Great Debate, held at the University of Aberdeen on 22-24 July 2008

IWMW 11: Institutional Web Management 2007: Next Steps for the Web Management Community, held at the University of York on 16-18 July 2007

IWMW 10: Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005: Quality Matters, held at the University of Bath on 14-16 June 2006

IWMW 9: Institutional Web Management Workshop 2005: Whose Web Is It Anyway?, held at the University of Manchester on 6-8 July 2005

IWMW 8: Institutional Web Management Workshop 2004: Transforming The Organisation, held at the University of Birmingham on 27-29 June 2004

IWMW 7: Institutional Web Management Workshop 2003: Supporting Our Users, held at the University of Kent at Canterbury on 11-13 June 2003

IWMW 6: Institutional Web Management Workshop 2002: The Pervasive Web, held at the University of Strathclyde on 18-20 June 2002

IWMW 5: Institutional Web Management Workshop: Organising Chaos, held at Queen's University Belfast on 25-27 June 2001

IWMW 4: Institutional Web Management: The Joined-Up Web, held at the University of Bath on 6-8 September 2000

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