Recommendations for Departments

The web has become an essential means of communication, customer service, and public relations for many administrative and academic departments at University of Alaska. This document contains recommendations from the OIT Web Services group for departments who seek to respond to this trend by developing their own Web sites.

The term "web development" encompasses many overlapping skill sets and career paths. Good web development involves the participation of individuals in a spectrum of roles:

Many departments use student workers to develop their Web sites. Most of these students are very skilled in web development and create excellent Web sites. However, the use of student workers generally does not solve long-term web development issues for departments. Often, when a student leaves the University, the department they were working for is left without a replacement. Additionally, it is frequently difficult for a replacement to comprehend the code written by a former student.

While it is often very cheap to hire a student for the initial project, more difficulties (and costs!) are usually incurred in the long-term. Consider using an online content management system such as Roxen Web Content Management System . Using an online content management system allows anyone in the department to easily make frequent updates to the Web site.

Departments are strongly encouraged to take advantage of existing resources. These include:

* Through Roxen WCMS, OIT offers an online content management system. This system enables individuals without web development expertise to easily update Web sites. No knowledge of HTML is required!

* OIT provides contract web development services in advanced areas such as graphic design, application development, database development, and project management. The availability of these services can help to further refine the range of skills needed in a departmental web developer.

* OIT provides extensive web hosting services (see the main web development page and the web hosting page). Thus, departmental web developers should not need skills in the area of hosting and server administration. In addition, OIT provides training, documentation, and support for major web publishing tools.