A workshop on “Institutional Web Services:  Evidence for Their Value” was held as part of  UKOLN’s Evidence, Impact, Metrics activity.  Details of this workshop are given below.

Title: Institutional Web Services:  Evidence for Their Value

Date: Friday 12  November 2010

Venue:  University of Strathclyde

Partners:  This 1-day event was being organised jointly with the Scottish Web Folk group.

Background:

A recent Cabinet Office press release announced a “Clamp down on Government websites to save millions“. This described how “As part of the Government’s efficiency drive, all of the existing 820 government funded websites will be subject to a review looking at cost, usage and whether they could share resources better“. The expectation is that up to 75% of existing Web sites will be shut down and the remaining sites would be expected to cuts their costs by up to 50% and move onto common infrastructures.

This decision was based on a report published by the Central Office for Information (COI) which found that “across government £94 million has been spent on the construction and set up and running costs of just 46 websites and £32 million on staff costs for those sites in 2009-10“. The most expensive Web sites were uktradeinvest.gov.uk (which costs £11.78 per visit) and businesslink.gov.uk (which costs £2.15 per visit).

Are University Web sites next in line?  How can we provide evidence of the value of institutional Web sites?  How can we demonstrate that the investment in providing Web sites delivers value and a positive ROI?  And can we develop a methodology and an appropriate set of metrics which can validate such claims?

This workshop session will address these issues. The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to describe current activities in these areas and listen to a number of case studies.  During the workshop participants will  hear about a methodology which relates the evidence of usage of services to the value provided by the services and explore how this methodology can be used to reflect institutional needs and priorities.   The implementation of this methodology in an institutional dashboard will be described.  The workshop will conclude by exploring ways in which such approaches can be embedded within an institution and the benefits which can be gained from using shared approaches across the sector.

Draft Timetable:

Outcomes

This event aims to:

• Provide an opportunity for participants to identify ways in which evidence can be gathered to demonstrate the value of institutional Web services.
• Identify the requirements for tools which can provide an analysis of accompanying data.
• Understand ways in which such tools can be implemented.
• Explore ways in which such analyses can be standardised.