Campus Web Committee

Overview of WWW Activities at Highline

Goal

To seamlessly integrate web technology as a coordinated part of all campus communication, instructional and business activities.

Definitions

Web presence: a collection of web sites serving a common purpose

Portal: the initial 1-6 pages of a specific web presence

Web site: a collection of web pages serving the communication activities of a department or service

Web page: a single page of information in a web site, which may address only one aspect of a site’s communication needs.

Working Assumptions

• Highline’s web activity is comprised of three distinct web presences: the Public Web, the Campus Intranet and the Direct Instruction Web (see Definitions).
• The development and management of the three web presences are and will continue to be distributed widely across campus.
• Portal pages in each web presence are assigned to a web coordinator.
• The campus-wide Web Steering Committee guides Highline’s overall web activities.
• Web working committees will be established to guide the web development within specific organizational units oncampus.
• The steering committee and working committees will work to develop unity for each presence. Goal: Unity without uniformity
• Success of this approach requires endorsement by Executive Staff and the support of Administration, Student Services, and Instruction Cabinet, and the Division Chairs.
• Success also requires provision of resources – departments will need to assign staff and provide training and release time from current activities. Time and location for development is also needed -- design work requires an environment with no interruptions.
• Highline is a high-tech campus. It is reasonable to expect competent use of web editing software, just as we expect competent use of word processing software.

What is the distributed model?

• Development and management of web sites and content takes place at the department level.
• Departments are responsible for updating information and maintaining sites according to campus standards and web procedures. It is the responsibility of named web authors and department managers to ensure this on their sites. This responsibility extends to each web presence.
• Representatives of departments participate in the development of web presence policy and design guidelines.

Why the distributed model?

• Keeps a tight connection between the content and the office responsible for the content; and it eliminates lags in posting information.
• Entire campus embraces a technology that is a norm for communication.
• Enhances a sense of community and responsibility for participation in campus communication.
• Entire campus owns the college’s communication internally and with our larger community.
• Each department can decide how to balance web activities and shift resources within departmental priorities, rather than a campus shift of resources to support the Highline web activities.