Jeff Barr, Amazon Web Services (Senior Manager, Web Services Evangelism) will discuss Amazon's approach to Web-scale computing. Using this new approach, developers can use Amazon's broad line of web services to rapidly and cost-effectively build scalable and flexible Web applications. Jeff will focus on Amazon's newest services, including the Simple Queue Service, the Simple Storage Service, and the Elastic Compute Cloud. The talk will include technical details and an overview of how the services are being used by customers all over the world.

Alison Wildish, Head of Web Services, Edge Hill University will talk about how Students are asking each other for help and advice rather than coming direct to our staff. These same students are advising our applicant community about University life and they're all doing it in an "informal" environment. These are all positive developments but it does mean we start to ask the question... if we're moving towards developing and nurturing students in these online communities and empowering them to help themselves, will we still need a "corporate" Web site in the future? Furthermore with the increase in "free" tools available such as email, file storage, blogs etc. - will Institutional systems be a thing of the past?

Philip Wilson, University of Bath will ask how do people make use of the data you publish on the Web? If you publish a staff directory, how do people currently add contact details to their address books? Copy and paste has had its day, Microformats are a way of making the data you already publish not only useful, but re-usable and re-purposable for relatively little effort. This session considers how these data formats can help you solve specific data problems on your site.

Emma Tonkin, UKOLN and Adam Hardy will consider that User testing is often considered to be prohibitively expensive, complicated and time-consuming; the good news is that at least two of these assumptions are wrong. This hands-on session demonstrates how to use scenario-based user testing to check out the usability of a small application. It concentrates on accessible and practical real-world techniques for user testing, analysing the results, and working out how to apply them - as quick fixes, long-term aims or feature requests.

Adrian Stevenson, Internet Services, The University of Manchester will give an introduction to the SMIL standard and show how it can be used to create rich multimedia presentations. We will explore some of the problems and issues that arise when creating SMIL presentations, such as quality and copyright issues, and we will look briefly at some of the alternative technologies for creating time based presentations, comparing these to SMIL.

This session will be run by Michael Day, DCC, UKOLN, Maureen Pennock, DCC, UKOLN and Lizzie Richmond, University Archivist, University of Bath. Institutional Web sites have become an increasingly important tool for disseminating key institutional information to and between staff, students, researchers and the general public. They are widely recognised as key front-office mechanisms for the communication of important information, but the long-term survival of Web site resources and data with non-transient or enduring value is often overridden by the short-term benefits of on-the-fly Web site management. As a result, even institutions with Web site archiving policies can find themselves falling victim to the so-called digital dark ages and fail to preserve valuable information.

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.

Barry Cornelius, Computing Services, University of Oxford will explore how to make RSS work in your institution. Recently, the University of Oxford has risen to this challenge: it has delivered a devolved institutional newsfeed system. This workshop session will discuss how this system was produced and will demonstrate how easy it is to produce news items and get them displayed on a Web page or delivered through RSS.

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.

Paul Trueman, Netskills, University of Newcastle will be facilitating this session. Web services technology provides the opportunity to integrate applications and business functionality in to existing Web enabled VLEs. A Web service exposes business functionality by both consuming and producing data in XML format. Future online learning environments may be fully developed and maintained using a web services infrastructure. Web services solutions as yet still need to reach their full potential; particularly in the academic sector. In this session Paul will demonstrate potential uses of web services to support e-Learning and present guidelines on how to consider making best use of this emerging technology.

Andy Ramsden, Learning Technology Advisor, Learning Technology Support Service, University of Bristol and Paul Ayres, SOSIG Research Officer, ILRT will be looking at podcasts. The aim of this workshop is that by the end the participant will be able to answer the following five questions; 1) What is podcasting? 2) How do you create, distribute and subscribe to a podcast? 3) What is good practice in terms of designing and creating podcasts? 4) How might podcasts be effectively used in an educational context? 5) Where should people go for more information?

Tim Matschak, Cass Business School, City University, will consider writing for the Web - is it so difficult? Which models for success should those involved in institutional Web management follow? This session looks at accessible language, using the expertise of professional writers from other media areas such as newspaper journalism.

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.

Brian Kelly, UKOLN and Lawrie Phipps, JISC will review the barriers which we may face when implementing a Web 2.0 strategy and will outline a model and strategies which can be be used in order to address such barriers.

David Burden, Managing Director, DADENLIMITED and Marieke Guy, UKOLN will consider questions like: Can chatbots make sites more accessible or do they break fundamental usability rules? Do users like them, or find them irritating or even patronising? Are they the next best thing or a 5 minute wonder? Can they really benefit the education sector? Can a chatbot ever really learn?

In previous IWMWs sessions have focussed on issues such as: Should we buy or build our CMS? Which CMS should we implement? How do we implement our CMS? How can we measure the impact of our CMS Implementation? And how do we address The CMS Challenge? But last year it was claimed that "There is no such thing as a silver bullet" and that a CMS will not solve all your problems. Has the CMS bubble bust? Has content management become content mis-management? In the light of new approaches, such as Web 2.0, and new 'ways of doing things' is there a feeling of disillusionment with 'ye old CMS'? Or does a CMS remain the backbone of a good institutional Web site? In this debate you will hear the arguments for and against content management systems and will have an opportunity to express your views.

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.

Michael Webb, IT and Media Services Head, University of Wales, Newport gave a talk about how Web 2.0 technologies are changing the way our staff and students (potential, current and past) relate to one another and our Universities. Embracing these technologies provides a great opportunity to enhance the University experience, but also presents a number of risks and challenges. So how do Universities develop a strategic approach to embracing Web 2.0?

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

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