DR. ANNMARIA DEMARS: December 2007 Archives
For anyone beginning a website, whether it is to deliver on-line training as a web-based business or have a home page for your son's Boy Scout Troop, the major mistake is usually the same. That is, failing to consider the time needed to maintain it. Over the years, I have been involved with several organizations - my children's schools, sports teams, grant-funded projects - and have created a website for them, either working as a volunteer on my own time or as an added service thrown into a contract. Some of these websites were done back when the idea of having a presence on the Internet was a fairly new concept.
Regardless of the year written, type of organization and topic, most of these sites have one thing in common. They are in the exact same condition as the day I left the organization.
I am not alone. It is very common to run across websites for small organizations that have not been updated in years, listing events or topics "of the week" when the week they were referencing ended June 12, 1999. For larger entities - corporations, colleges and some multi-million dollar non-profits, their websites are updated far more frequently than the little guys, so it is not so glaringly obvious that maintenance is a problem. You won't find a home page with sales prices from 2003.
What you may find, however, is an increasing number of links that don't work or documents that you download that turn out to be hopelessly out of date.
Key lesson we have learned with every web-based course or project: budget in money for maintenance. Life changes. If it cost you $60,000 in hours paid to your staff to write the content, even if you estimate only 10% of the material will change each year, that still means $6,000 per year just to keep your site up to date, never mind expanding it.
If the website was done free by a volunteer, when he or she leaves, someone will need to be found to update changes to your calendar, planned events, board of directors, contact information and anything else that might be subject to change. That "anything else" includes almost every aspect of your operation.
We are working on a new grant right now and I intend to budget about 20% for maintenance after our final draft. I am hoping that will keep us on track for at least the first two years.
Regardless of the year written, type of organization and topic, most of these sites have one thing in common. They are in the exact same condition as the day I left the organization.
I am not alone. It is very common to run across websites for small organizations that have not been updated in years, listing events or topics "of the week" when the week they were referencing ended June 12, 1999. For larger entities - corporations, colleges and some multi-million dollar non-profits, their websites are updated far more frequently than the little guys, so it is not so glaringly obvious that maintenance is a problem. You won't find a home page with sales prices from 2003.
What you may find, however, is an increasing number of links that don't work or documents that you download that turn out to be hopelessly out of date.
Key lesson we have learned with every web-based course or project: budget in money for maintenance. Life changes. If it cost you $60,000 in hours paid to your staff to write the content, even if you estimate only 10% of the material will change each year, that still means $6,000 per year just to keep your site up to date, never mind expanding it.
If the website was done free by a volunteer, when he or she leaves, someone will need to be found to update changes to your calendar, planned events, board of directors, contact information and anything else that might be subject to change. That "anything else" includes almost every aspect of your operation.
We are working on a new grant right now and I intend to budget about 20% for maintenance after our final draft. I am hoping that will keep us on track for at least the first two years.
These last several days are the longest I have ever gone without posting here. No, I have not quit working and become a beach bum, spending my days drinking Pina Coladas and my nights sleeping in the sand. As my lovely children commonly say, "Dude, don't I wish!"
The sad truth is far more boring than that. We finished the final draft of the Ethics Course. That has taken a fair bit of work. Erich (a.k.a. Dr. Longie) has been working his - well, his something - off teaching workshops on every reservation in sight, snow storms or no. He has collected almost all of the data needed on the on-site version of the workshop, so, if you want to attend, you will need to go to our on-line version and enroll. It is still free until the end of January. Erich has also been going to points far and wide teaching our workshop on Special Education Rights. I think he just heard one too many stories about children not getting the services they needed or school districts not listening to parents, because he has been from one reservation to the next meeting with parents and school staff explaining to them exactly what rights children have under the law.
With Erich off fighting the good fight and collecting data at the beginning and end of each workshop to boot (the government is smarter than you think - no, I am serious - and they insist on data to show we are making a difference) - well, I have been back at the office analyzing all that data, creating a PowerPoint presentation for our webcast on December 14, analyzing the data for our final report on the Disability Access project (now renamed to the Family Life Series) and other research in progress.
I am also working on our next grant for the Tribal Leaders with Character project (Phase II) and doing a lot of minor and major changes on our website. Does it ever drive you crazy when you click on a link and it comes up "not found"? Yeah, me too. So, my helpful assistant, Jenn, found a few that I fixed. I am also working (slowly) on adding media features, especially video, to our virtual library and adding better menus to the disability-specific section of the virtual library. Okay, well, honestly, we don't have any menus for that section right now, so anything at all will be better.
With the end of the year approaching, we are winding down data collection and training a little, which allows me to get caught up. Then next year starts up with the grant due by the first week in February and I will be tearing my hair out again.
Oh well, at least there is never a dull moment around here.
