WEBMOB Portal Management Lifecycle –

Current features and issues

WEBMOB Portal Management Lifecycle –

Current features and issues

3rd WEBMOB project meetingHvar 29.9.2006

MEF, Milan Zdravković

3rd WEBMOB project meetingHvar 29.9.2006

MEF, Milan Zdravković

• Web portal visits and visibility improvement

• Content tree and management guidelines

• Interactive features• Content integration• Open issues• Beyond WEBMOB project

Presentation overview

Web portal stats - Summary

• Period: 13.3.2006 - 11.9.2006• 15411 page views, 2080 sessions, 7 pages per session• Time of the day of the most frequent visits: 17-20 h• 3 (Three) registered users (Albania, Macedonia, Serbia)

284 6411198

720

2278

9086

1205

March

April

May

Jun

July

August

September

284 6411198

720

2278

9086

1205

March

April

May

Jun

July

August

September

Web portal stats - Tracing WB visitors

26%

38%

10%

10%

16%

Croatia

FYR of Macedonia

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Albania

Serbia

26%

38%

10%

10%

16%

Croatia

FYR of Macedonia

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Albania

Serbia

• Excluded google bots, CERTH and production visits• Almost no visits from any other country

Web portal stats - Comments

• Web portal is visited almost exclusively by project partners

• Empty pages are highly visited (311 visits for Legislation review)

• Although there is some progress, site tools are not being used

Deploy ContentManagement

best practices

Improve visibility

Motivate contribution

Visibility improvement: Implementation of cost-effective promotion strategy

• Newsletters– Technical solution– Mailing lists– Customized content

• Banner advertising– Selection of sites– Deploy of HTML code and graphical design– Click monitoring and campaign efficiency analysis

• Simple trick– Put WEBMOB site URL and title in email and/or forum

signatures and stationeries (if institution allow this)

Web portal content tree

Guidelines for content management

• Avoid empty pages– No content is better that lousy or misleading content

– If there is no content, there IS content:• Present timeline of content’s asessment, dissemination, drafting and

sign-off,

• Describe structure and sources of information to be published,

• Ask for contribution on a topic,

• Point to contacts,

• Put links to reference information, but don’t …

• Copy and paste a nice poem

• Structure information– More usable content

Interactive features

• Why interaction ?– Target group of the website is research community– Community is at the source and/or is the source of information

• Ask for contribution– Motivation to contribute lead to verbal site promotion

• Shared content ownership induce an author’s sense of responsibility over its promotion

• Shaping the interaction– Ask for opinion and/or comment

• Legislation review• WB Incoming mobility

– Ask for information• News and/or announcements• Mobility guide resources• Links & other resources• Targeted web questionnaries

– Incoming mobility in research organizations– Researchers registration

Interactive features example #1: Post news or announcement

Interactive features example #2: Questionnaire for incoming mobility in Serbia (10

entries)

50%50% 50%50%

30%

70%

30%

70%

According to your experience, does the incoming mobility exist in Serbia?

Generally, do you consider mobility as an important issue in the process of harmonising with the European Union?

90%

10%

90%

10%

Is there a job offer for foreign researchers in your institution?

Would you like to increase the number of foreign researchers?

90%

10%

90%

10%

• 40% of questionnaire contributions (10 out of 25) came from the website

Content integration• Aggregation

– Automatic use of multiple sources of information, according to source’s terms & conditions

– Choose relevant sources, filter information– RSS directories

• http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-directory.htm• http://allrss.com/rssfeeds.html

• Syndication– Content distribution

WEBMOB web site

Web site #1

Web site #2

Web site #n

RSS feedsWeb site #1

Web site #2

Web site #n

RSS feeds

Content Aggregation: Example

Open issues #1

• Disclaimer• Privacy policy

– Contact information is being requested in questionnaries

• Privacy issues– Emails or RD institutions contact persons are displayed on site

probably without their prior consent !!– Email form as feasible alternative

• RD institutions database– Format is not unified. Branches are missing for Croatia and

Albania (keywords are being used instead, as a workaround)

Open issues #2

• Albania presentations from both meetings are missing

• All presentations (excluding Croatian) from Saranda meeting are missing

• Links and resources section requirements are not clearly defined and communicated to the partners

• Mobility guides

Maturing project website to WB mobility portal ?

• Existing core content gives a firm ground for attracting visitors – how to keep them there ?

• Attract attention from community and gain credibility by providing updated, true, usable and personalized information in continuous manner

• Self-sustainable (almost) management concept, implemented by interactive features and content aggregation, lowers management costs

Thank you for your attention