Site Management

In a school district, there will be many different people contributing to the overall content of the web site. Whenever many people have the ability to create content on he same site, it is likely that continuity gaps in the integrity of the design of the site will be created by some or all of the developers.

Imagine the development of a typical school web site. The technology coordinator lays out the main page. That main page has a color scheme, integrated graphics and a navigation tool. Aside from the main page, the technology coordinator may create other "technical" pages: software support pages, email access pages, etc. Other pages on the school site may be created by individuals or groups. Different people could create pages for any or all of the following: academic groups, athletic groups, clubs, special events, schedules. Any one of these groups could have multiple people working independently of the rest of the group. For instance, the sports area may have different individuals creating the boys and girls basketball web pages. There may be another person that does the page for the junior high boys, while another creates a page for the junior high girls. In addition, there is intramural basketball and even "midget" leagues. Just this one sport could have five or six different people creating content, and that only covers one of a dozen sports for the district.

Extrapolate this out to all the different groups that will want a web presence at the school, and there may be 100 different people creating web pages that end up on the school web site. Without proper planning and management, the school web site could easily become a dumping ground for bad HTML.

Management Techniques