[Air-l] non-profit web sites

[Brian Cugelman]

Hi Pedro,

I've not read anything on web cases studies of non-profit websites, but
I've worked in web development for many years and have conducted similar
studies, so I'll share some practical experience and opinions on the
matter.  When the web started, Webmasters were generally
jacks-of-all-trades who worked on technical, editorial and visual
components of websites.  In many cases, institutions would send all content
to a single Webmaster or web team, and if they reviewed all content, they
were the single source of knowledge for the company/organization's website
content.  Now, it's become more common to divide these roles into
technical, editorial, and visual tasks.

A few years back, I case studied  three leading UK non-profit websites and
we arranged interviews with various staff from each site: the programme
directors, editors, technical staff, info architects, etc...  The feedback
we received after interviewing several staff answered most of our
questions, but no single person could answer them all.  For another study,
last year, I worked on an audit of 48 non-profit websites and the biggest
challenge was to get the organizations to assign a focal point who could
collect the information from the various website stakeholders.  And again
it was quite challenging to find one person who could easily answer
questions across a range of website issues.

In centralized websites, in general the manager usually provides a clear
big-picture perspective, the technical people can tell you about log file
trends and other interesting technical details, the content editors should
know the users and how what they're interested in, and the person who
answers email requests will really know their users.  Furthermore, in a
decentralized website, such as one run on an institutional CMS, the
knowledge of users may only reside in the departments that produce content
and who react to client requests.  In these cases, the Webmaster or web
team would only provide the infrastructure and would be the wrong persons
to contact.

So to answer your question, I would argue you need to contact the people
who produce content and interact with the users.  Then contact the
technical people to make sure you have good statistics and other insights.
Also, I think it is important to contact the higher level Directors who may
be technically lost, but can set the stage in broad and easy to understand
language (afterall, the Internet is a digital network that connects human
networks and it's the people and issues that count).  And remember, few
Webmasters and web team are the same, so the range of skills, aptitudes and
tasks are often randomly distributed among the members.  There may be one
key person, but there may be 3 people that cover the key areas.  So perhaps
you would need to ask "who does what" before arranging interviews.

I'm venturing further into this area over the next three years and would be
interested to learn how your approach works out.

Good luck on your project.

Brian





                                                                           
             pjo at unr.edu                                                   
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Hi everyone,
I am seeking advice in relation to a subject that I am currently
researching. I am doing a study on non-profit web sites -what are the
online discourses articulated by ethnic community-based groups in the
US?
I have conducted interviews with webmasters. However, my colleagues
are raising serious doubts about the representativeness of the
information and opinions provided by the webmasters. Because of the
nature of the technology they believe that the web sites and their
contents are just products of webmasters and not of the entire
association.
In other words, if you carry out research in non-profit groups, and
you conduct interviews with for example the director of the group, how
representative would be her opinions in relation to those of the rest
of the group? Could I take for good the contents posted on the web
sites as products of the entire association?
Any suggestion, advice, bibliographical reference would be much appreciate
it.
Thanks



Pedro J. Oiarzabal
Center for Basque Studies/322
University of Nevada, Reno
NV 89557 -USA
1-775-784-4854
Fax: 1-775-784-1355
pjo at unr.edu
http://basque.unr.edu

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