Slides for talk given at IWMW 1998 held at the University of Newcastle on 15-17 September 1998. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-sep1998/materials/

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9898
The Operations of
The British Council
Web
Paul Squires
Webmaster
The British Council, Web Team
Manchester

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September 98
The future of the British Council
•Policies of Blair government, channelled through
•Foreign and Commonwealth Office
•Department for International Development
•Panel 2000
•promoting the UK as a nucleus of modern arts
and culture
•Visioning
•addressing the shape of the Council

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The Activities of The British Council
Promote the UK to the
world
Promote English language and
education overseas

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September 98
The British Council Home Page

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September 98
Vital Statistics
16,500 HTML files and 6,000 graphics
150 pages updated every day
140 web co-ordinators and 200 web authors across
109 countries
over 100 countries find the site, across a plethora of
operating systems and browsers
50-250 pages uploaded per day
15 local languages and 21 local servers
3,000,000 hits/month with 10% monthly increase
TCO: approximately £3.5m per year

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Web Authoring Diagram

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September 98
Web Authoring Services
Remote Authoring System, a complete
suite of templates and tools for web
production
Web Discussion Forums service
Regional Web Training, co-ordinated in
Manchester but delivered globally
Comprehensive split statistics
CD Rom of Internet, RAS, Intranet
Ratings exercises and Quality Assurance
to preserve the corporate web style

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Local Servers and Content
Establishing local lingustic
content is also encouraged
projects more of a local presence
empowers local offices
capture more of a potential
audience
make more of a cultural link in-
country
provide greater services
MIRRORED
Australia www.bc.org.au
Canada www.britcoun-canada.org
Chile www.britcoun.cl
Estonia www.bctallinn.ee
Germany www.britcoun.de
Greece www.britcoun.gr
Hong Kong
www.britcoun.org.hk
Israel www.britcoun.il
Italy www.britcoun.it
Malaysia www.britcoun.org.my
New Zealand www.britcoun.org.nz
Pakistan www.britcoun.org.pk
Poland www.britcoun.org.pl
Portugal www.britcounpt.org
Slovenia www.britishcouncil.si
Sri Lanka www.britcoun.lk
Taiwan www.britcoun.org.tw
Thailand www.britcoun.or.th
Turkey www.britcoun.org.tr
Ukraine www.bc.kiev.ua
USA www.britishcouncil-usa.org
COUNTRIES THAT HAVE
LOCAL LANGUAGE
CONTENT
Argentina Bolivia Brazil
Chile Colombia Ecuador
Estonia Germany Hong Kong
Mexico Peru Taiwan
Turkey Venezuela Wales

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Bad Design Examples
Non-white or graphic backgrounds
Including unnecessary, clip-art or hand-drawn
graphics
Realigning and tinkering with templates
Adding unnecessary links when a concise
array of content will do
Frames
Animated GIFs

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Compliance
•Managers, Executives and Board Members must feel that the
Web is a
Principal instrument for branding
•Link site auditing with Design and Corporate Affairs
Content owned by board
•Evaluation of managerial performance
Direct correlation with country/department web
page performance
•Ratings and QA for each office
Every quarter

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Reshaping content and technology
development principles
user focused
established ownership
cutting edge technology,
applied in a rational manner
simple yet powerful and
navigable design
flexible

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Corporate IT and
Information Services Management

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NT Server in the Web strategy
The primary function of NT in our strategy is to serve
• Robust applications
• Applications that can be easily built and developed by Council staff
• Functionality not served to such an extent (functionality, TCO etc) by Unix
However, for the Internet at large,
our OS of choice will continue to be
Unix

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Forthcoming Web services
Portable streaming media server: likely to be either
RealVideo or Microsoft NetShow. Built around
portable NT server and telecommunication links,
with fixed point server
Document management system, likely to be
database driven
Development of content and technology for WebTV

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September 98
Technological change versus
corporate security concerns
Implications for the Web Team
and Corporate IT
• Security
• Author Training
• Connectivity
• Infrastructure and server
programs
• Effect on Corporate Network
The processing of these
implications results in
• Service Level Agreements
• Password management services
• Overseas staff training funding
• Support for office connectivity
overseas

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September 98
BC Web Team Activities
Editorial Assistants
Assistant Web Master
Web Master
Web Manager
Training
Manager
•co-ordination of incoming material
•editing
•quality testing
•uploading
•maintenance of the site
•introducing new technologies
•policy and outreach
•co-ordination and delivery of training
•development of Remote authoring system
•liaison with authors and ratings
Intranet
Manager
•intranet content development and publishing
•works with all BC departments
•outside, but with close relations to, web team

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The British Council on the Web
www.britcoun.org