Cabinet Office
The key to effective website management is the development and implementation of a strategy designed to ensure that it remains focused on what the organisation is there to deliver as well as on what information and services the target audiences expect to be able to access.
1.2.1 Strategic and operational management
Effective website management can be defined under three categories:
1.2.1.1 The owning organisation
The owning organisation is responsible for establishing and maintaining the web management strategy and for ensuring that it integrates with wider strategic plans.
The equivalent of a senior editorial board is recommended. This will help ensure that key areas of the organisation bring a full range of necessary skills and awareness to the process of setting aims and objectives for the website. The owning organisation should also ensure that the resources are in place to achieve these aims. The following are examples of key areas of the organisation that should be represented.
1.2.1.2 Skill sets for setting web strategy
Communications: Executive Board
At this level the corporate communications policy is set. Therefore a clear framework covering how the organisation is to communicate information is required and is to be used to determine the subject matter to be covered by the website. This approach will clarify the areas of content control appropriate to both the Internet and Intranet.
This role does not require day-to-day involvement. It is more about clearly defining the parameters within which information is to be made available in the public domain and establishing appropriate control mechanisms for handling potentially sensitive information.
Corporate services: publicity and marketing
Publicity or marketing skills support the communication strategy, ensuring that audiences are identified and effective communication of messages and promotion of services takes place. Their understanding of the organisation’s publicity and marketing strategy is integral to ensuring that the website communicates effectively and provides services users require.
Web service provision: Web management team
The web management team will know the opportunities and caveats of working with the web: what it does well and what can go wrong.
They can be a source of new ideas, and are likely to be able to keep an eye on the technological future.
As they represent the day-to-day management of the website they are also a source of practical advice on procedures, resourcing, scheduling, capacity, risks and benefits.
They are likely to be responsible for looking at access statistics and user feedback and are well placed to take an impartial view of customer needs versus organisational perceptions.
They are responsible for maintaining the structure of the website and understanding the limitations of staff time, Internet technology and the systems the organisation has in place.
It is likely that there will be one key manager responsible for content and another responsible for technical issues and developments. Both sides of the team should be represented on the editorial board.
Content owners
The people in the organisation who will want to publish to the web. What are their needs, issues, etc? What capacity do they have to amend and update content? It is important that a procedure is in place to control the correction and uploading of content, ie, who has final signoff before content goes live.
Resource provision
Because a website invariably impacts the whole organisation in terms of service delivery and business processes, it is essential that the resource implications are recognised and handled accordingly. Allied to this is the need to ensure that the technology aspects of the website are sufficiently and appropriately resourced and that future staff and equipment needs are planned in advance. This can be particularly difficult in an area notorious for its pace of change and evolution.
Material for the website (and other future communication technologies) has to be generated using specific software tools and languages. These create training and organisational requirements that need to be covered as part of the website management regime.
Finally, staff has to be recruited and trained and a purchasing budget will be necessary for software, equipment and consultants.
Technology provision
All web services are dependent on technology solutions. Impartial technical advice and guidance is required to ensure that the most appropriate solution is used to meet customer service needs. It is essential that someone familiar with the technology should cover this area. However, given the diversity of IT solutions available in the marketplace, technological impartiality is essential and as such should be a key factor when selecting a suitable representative.
The establishment of a web strategy and management team comprising representatives that cover these roles will result in a more streamlined operational group. By operating in a more project-style management environment the team will be able to create and manage small teams geared towards delivering products on a customer-demand basis.
1.2.2 Web service management
A team of people will be responsible for ensuring that the website achieves its strategic aims. It does this through:
This team should consist of people with a mix of publication, web and project management skills. A senior web manager is recommended to manage the team and ensure it carries out its tasks. A further division of labour between content and technical responsibilities is likely.
1.2.2.1 Meeting overall aims and objectives
Clear, formal and regular progress reports against the aims and objectives are recommended to ensure that:
Reports need not be onerous, with the emphasis being on reporting by exception. They will help inform the broader organisation of progress and give stakeholders the opportunity to raise concerns, issues and/or new developments.
The benefits of this process are:
1.2.2.2 Effective website operation
The website strategy should also determine the management, communications and security regimes that will drive the service. These objectives are also the criteria against which service level agreements (under formal contract where external commercial suppliers are party to service provision) are set.
The web management team should:
The web management team can contribute towards effective transactions by ensuring that the website effectively exchanges data between the user and the organisation. They contribute to ensuring that transactions and authentication are secure. Effective transactions are likely to also require reform of other operational systems in order to accept electronic applications.
1.2.2.3 Effective content
The web management team is also the overall point of responsibility for ensuring that content:
The relevant units can still carry out production of material across the organisation, but material can only be published once authorised by the appropriate posts in the web management team. The objectives for information providers must therefore be to ensure that:
There should be sufficient controls in place to check that content:
1.2.2.3 Effective service
All government websites must be working towards providing online information and services. The web management team’s role here is to help ensure that data can be securely and effectively exchanged between the user and databases within the organisation and partner bodies. Effective service provision also involves reform of business systems in order to work with electronic data, security and authentication.
1.2.3 Conventions on government publicity
Websites maintained by UK Government departments and agencies, the Scottish Executive, the Northern Ireland Executive and the National Assembly for Wales are a form of publicity, and are subject to the conventions on government publicity and advertising.
These conventions are set out and explained at the following websites:
In summary, they require that government publicity:
These rules not only govern decisions on what should or should not be published on the Internet; they also apply to issues of content and style. For example, departments should take care when publishing ministerial speeches on the Internet to remove overtly party political content, such as direct attacks on policies and opinions of Opposition parties and groups.
See section 1.3 Advertising and sponsorship
1.2.4 Contingency planning
Whatever an organisation’s line of business, there is always a requirement for contingency plans to cover a number of eventualities.
A government organisation can be thrust into the spotlight of the media at a moment’s notice. You should ensure that your website has the capability to carry fast-developing stories and that its web hosting service would be able to deal with a sudden increase in the number of visitors.
A news development that requires immediate publishing on the web must not shortcut or bypass existing publishing standards. The contingency plan may suggest that it can be streamlined but the correct authorisation must be given before any information is published on the website.
Within this contingency plan there should a clear and easily accessible list of roles and responsibilities for each of the staff concerned in publishing emergency information. This list must be up-to-date and have contact numbers for each individual.
This same list of individuals to contact and a similar list of roles and responsibilities will be vital in any disaster recovery scheme. If the server is physically destroyed, severely hacked or ceases to function there should be plans already in place to restore service. If your organisation has an overall disaster recovery plan, then plans to restore website service should work within it.
Finally, you should ensure your contract with your server host writes preventative measures such as frequency of backup and the supplier’s responsibilities in the event of a disaster.
See section 1.12.3 Disaster recovery
Important:
The organisation’s website may be the first port of call for many members of the public, and incorrect data posted on the site in a hurry is worse than no data at all.
1.2.5 Mirror (ghost) copy of website
The machine running the live website will usually reside at an Internet hosting datacentre. It is recommended that the web manager should keep one or more additional 'mirror' copies of the organisation’s website on a local PC. This is in order to facilitate the development and testing of updates to the website's content and organisation prior to installing the changes on the live site.
One commonly adopted solution is for the web manager to establish a development environment and a second checking (or staging) environment in addition to the live website. It is possible to have the development and staging versions of the website on the same computer. However, it is important to keep the development and testing functions well separated regardless of whether the two mirror copies are on the same computer or separate ones.
Maintaining local copies of the website will also allow the complete and latest version of the site to be available at all times when only a dialled or slow speed connection to the Internet is available. It may also be desirable to automate the updating of the live website in order to minimise the time that it is unavailable while updates are being installed.
With a local development copy of the website, it is easy to see how any new documents will fit into the existing structure. Maintaining a staging copy of the website enables content and links to be checked and general usability to be tested prior to applying changes to the live website.
It is likely that a local PC’s filesystem naming and organisation rules will be different from those used on the live server. In order for the development and test environments to be of value and easy to use, it is important they should replicate the directory and file organisation and naming used on the live website. Often this can be achieved quite straightfordwardly by keeping all file and directory names and the references to them in hyperlinks within pages in lower case and always using relative URLs in internal hyperlinks (ie, reference all links from the root of the website). Refer to section section 1.9 and section 3.2.3 for recommendations on directory and file naming schemes for websites. Following these recommendations will improve the chances that the live website directory structure and the files it contains can be copied to a PC where the site hyperlink navigation will work without having to make changes to all the files.
It is a role of the web manager to assess the technical requirements for the website development and testing environments in consultation with server managers. Typically the requirements will depend upon issues such as the size and complexity of the website and aspects of the regime under which it is managed, for example, whether it is being updated by more than one staff member or from multiple geographical locations.
1.2.6 Developing educational content
Where an organisation’s website is developing online education content it is important that you refer to advice published by the National Grid for Learning.
Web managers should also be aware of procedures that apply to the use of children’s photographs on websites. You should be especially sensitive in the case of children or young people with special educational needs. If:
Then you should:
When a website is directed at children or young people consider offering advice to them and their parents about safe surfing. See Home Office website at:
See Home Office website at: http://www.wiseuptothenet.co.uk/ [External link]
The forthcoming Quality Framework document on ‘What makes a good government website’ explains what to do when children are involved in user research.
1.2.7 Records management
Records Management is the systematic control and management of recorded information resources within an organisation to ensure that the business, legal, regulatory and other requirements for the retention of authentic, evidential records are met.
There are also useful management concepts familiar to records management professionals that are of use to managing large volume information resources. Examples include retention management (usually achieved using schedules), protective marking of sensitive material (eg on Intranets), corporate fileplans etc.
The underlying principle of records management is that records are kept for a period appropriate to their use. Specific procedures follow this principle to assist in its achievement in a systematic and structured way.
Records occurring on websites should be managed in the context of other information resources and records in government and not in isolation. Certain web content across government will have the status of records and should be identified and managed accordingly to manage business risk and comply with legal and regulatory obligations. Some will be required to be preserved for long periods for these reasons or to satisfy the archival preservation requirements of the Public Records Acts (see section 1.10.5).
Managing records in the electronic environment is demanding. Issues of retrieval, migration, authentication and preservation replace pressure on storage space in the traditional hard copy environment. Adding disk space may be a cheap option in the short term, but migrating the content to new platforms and ensuring media refreshment occurs at regular intervals are extremely costly.
This has a significant consequence on the management of web resources and the Public Record Office has published guidance on how these issues might be addressed.
Public Record Office - Managing electronic records on websites and Intranets
1.2.8 Management documentation
Whether the organisation’s website has been produced internally or by a design agency, it is important that each element of the construction is fully documented.
Personnel within the website management team will eventually move on and need to be replaced. Without adequate formal documentation a great deal of time will be lost in new staff determining, eg, what markup to use in order to maintain a consistent look and feel.
A number of standards should be developed for the life cycle of a website or document, covering many of the following: