Role of the Webmaster in DuPont

Michael V. Mahoney,
DuPont GSB Information Design and Development
Initial post date: 03/06/1997
Last modified date: 10/05/1999

Abstract After the first external DuPont web sites were established in early 1995, (Performance Lubricants and Antron) a number of other businesses began web projects. Most of these project teams worked with the Corporate Home Page team to meet standards for corporate identity and to maintain a level of consistency in visual design. Part of the guidelines developed by the team dealt with three major roles (web editor, infomaster, and webmaster) and the responsibilities of each. Business web projects have had few problems understanding and staffing the web editor and infomaster roles, but the webmaster has posed a particular problem. The technical skills for coding HTML and transferring files using FTP are not widely found in DuPont businesses. As a result, the original web developers are often stuck with support and maintenance work for completed projects to the point where it interferes with new project work. Press releases, product literature, and promotional announcements change frequently and it's no one's job to code them and post them on the web site. This document charts the evolution of the role, defines typical tasks that may make up a webmaster's duties and discusses key considerations in assigning webmaster resources. This may help to define a webmaster role for inclusion in the service offering of the IT alliance with Andersen Consulting and CSC to DuPont businesses.

Overview
Everyone knows you can't have a web site without a webmaster. Every "official"-looking site has a hotlink at the bottom of the page to send the webmaster an email note and accommodate readers' need for instant gratification. But the exact duties of a webmaster vary considerably from site to site.

For small sites, the webmaster is a single person who does it all -- writes the copy, acquires the images, codes the pages, transfers them to the server, tests them and edits them. For larger sites with Java applets, animated gifs, and CGI scripts, this can quickly get out of hand. And once a site becomes really important to a business, formal reviews and sign-off processes make managing and maintaining the site a tremendous challenge for a staff of one.

A lot of effort has gone into defining the roles and responsibilities of participants in a web site, but the implementation of formal job assignments varies widely. Some small web sites with relatively unsophisticated presentation and mostly static content have just one person running the whole show. Usually these webmaster/web editor persons already are involved in marketing or marketing communications and have other responsibilities concerning print literature and trade shows.

Roles and Responsibilities During the Early Days
When the "corporate umbrella" home page was established during the summer of 1995, the roles of the web development team were modelled on an example provided by Rita Ayers from a conference presentation by Texas Instruments. The three roles were:

• Web Editor
  The web editor was viewed as analogous to a newspaper managing editor. The responsibilities included:
  • Defining the business objective for the web site
  • Identifying the target audience(s)
  • Setting the editorial tone and overall visual "look and feel" design of the site
  • Selecting content appropriate for meeting the communication goals for the audience(s)
  • Overseeing the day-to-day operations of the other team members
• Infomaster
  The infomaster role was defined as similar to the work done by the people in the Corporate Telecontact Center (CTC):
  • Responding to email messages sent by readers
  • Routing readers' questions and feedback to the appropriate resources in the various businesses for response
  • Collecting statistics concerning web feedback
  • Suggesting modifications to web content based on reader feedback
• Webmaster
  Finally, the webmaster role was shaped according to the needs of the team:
  • Setting technical standards for file- and directory-names
  • Consulting on HTML coding practices
  • Acting as a single point of contact between the web developers and the external server vendors
  • Establishing security safeguards with the external server vendor

Additionally, the early stages of the corporate home page involved a consultant from Electronic Information Security (ELIS), Corporate Information Science, and External Affairs Information Design and Development. An advertising agency was engaged to provide graphics and navigation buttons to give the site a more polished appearance.

During the setup stage of the web site, the webmaster played a critical role in defining and implementing the technologies used for the server. This consisted mostly of high-level technology decisions involving a great deal of skill and experience. Once things were up and running, his day-to-day involvement dropped off to a level of occasional consulting. The daily business of converting existing printed literature to HTML pages and GIF graphics and posting them on the web fell largely to the other team members. Of course, they came into the task as communications professionals with unusually sophisticated information technology skills. They were professional communicators who also happened to be geeks. Or at least, more geeky than most communications people.

Once the web site was more firmly established, the installation of a search engine, a product database, and more sophisticated design elements required more assistance from the webmaster. But once these were in place, his involvement dropped back to a lower level.

Formal titles were eventually given to the corporate Web Editor (Jim Scotton), Infomaster (Fran Sutton), and Webmaster (Frank Pater). An additional role was defined regarding information structure, navigation, and search engines. This position was called "Information Manager" and the title was given to Nina Patel

Evolving Roles: Corporate Needs Versus Business Needs
As various businesses progressed with external web projects and intranet plans, the corporate home page team solidified their roles into standards for businesses to follow. Businesses had existing resources performing roles equivalent to web editor and infomaster for other publications, but the webmaster role demands new technology skills that could not easily be found in house. Besides, the nature of the role is now a little bit different.

Business webmasters for external web sites and intranet sites may not need the same level of skills required by the corporate webmaster during the initial web construction. In most cases, a server already exists for the business' use. The environment is already set up, with search engines, libraries of existing scripts, and other shared resources in place and in use by other businesses. This is not always true for intranet sites, but external sites have need to share the "dupont.com" domain name for brand recognition and for readers' convenience in finding them. This limits the choice of external servers to the two vendors currently being used and the resources that they offer.

In addition, the Intranet Team has recognized additional roles needed for business web sites:

• Web Editor
  A business web editor is responsible for the same areas as the corporate web master, except the content is limited to information specific for a business. This centers around deciding what information is to be posted for what intended audiences and to serve what business objectives.
• Information Manager
  The information manager for a business plays a key role in the design to determine how the content is organized so that audience segments may find what they are looking for with a minimum of effort and little chance of getting lost in cyberspace.
• Information Provider(s)
  Information providers are the sources of the information posted on the web. They act as newspaper reporters. Usually their deliverables include hard copy or word processor files that need to be converted to finished HTML and GIF or JPEG graphics. Sometimes they provide server-ready electronic files, but more often that falls to others.
• Webmaster
  The webmaster in a business web project is usually the key resource for maintaining HTML, converting graphics, and transferring files to the server. The webmaster is chief geek. If the site uses imagemaps, animated GIFs, cgi scripts, or Java/Javascript applets, the webmaster is responsible for making them work and getting them up on the server.
• Feedback Coordinator
  The feedback coordinator fulfills the role defined as infomaster but the scope is limited to the business.

Other Resources
For external web sites, many businesses have been using their traditional advertising agencies for consulting on web design or for server-ready graphics. Some agencies deliver server-ready HTML code, but most do not.

For many businesses, the External Affairs Information Design and Development group plays a lead role in designing the web site and converting information to server-ready HTML and graphics for the initial web development effort. This is becoming as important for intranet projects as well as external web sites.

Initial Web Development Versus Ongoing Maintenance
The focus has been on building web sites where there were none before. But ongoing maintenance and site revisions will become the greater chore. This is where the lack of webmasters in the businesses becomes acute. Groups like Info Design have people with skills needed for webmastering, but their work revolves around new projects, not ongoing maintenance assignments. Without adequate webmaster resources in the businesses, the Info Design web developers become ensnared in commitments to make frequent changes in finished web sites as new press releases, product announcements and other updates are needed.

Up to now, we have had limited success in training business people to become webmasters or in acquiring webmaster resources from IS. Most web development projects start off with a discussion of roles and responsibilities and a "go do" for the business to identify a webmaster. When the site is ready to go live, they select someone at random to be the webmaster and ask the web developers for training. This sort of hand-off has rarely been successful.

Models for Discussion
The Info Design team has its roots in the development of printed literature. The print publication process (Figure 1) is a linear flow that ends with a static product and may have a revision loop. The production of a piece results in a print run that costs a lot of money. Any changes needed after publication are earmarked for inclusion the next time a revision is made. A revision to an existing piece of print literature is another project that once again results in a static deliverable.

By contrast, an IS application development process (Figure 2) results in a finished application, but data maintenance, batch operations, and support/enhancements require resources on a continuing basis long after an application has been placed into production.

The web publication development process (Figure 3) bears more similarity to the application development than it does to the print process. What is missing is a clear distinction between the "Publish" (blue box) and "Review" (red box) processes and the role(s) responsible for them.

Scope of Webmaster Role Varies
The scope of the webmaster role (Figure 4) can vary considerably with the level of complexity of the web site, the size of the site, and the degree of "server-readiness" of deliverables offered by ad agencies or information providers. At a minimum, a webmaster should be needed to post files on the server. As time goes on, web sites can be expected to grow both in volume and in complexity. Small web sites may need the most services. Larger sites may involve a wider variety of information providers with greater skills. Over time, the offerings of ad agencies and others should become more server-ready.

Webmaster Responsibilities
Generally, webmasters are expected to be technical wizards responsible for the computing environment in which a web resides. They preside over everything not related to content. In IT terminology, they are responsible for the application, but not the data.

Not all webmasters perform all these functions, but the following list is representative of the expectations of web project managers:

• Transfer files to a server using FTP
• Tweak existing HTML code
• Code new HTML pages
• Scan, edit, and convert graphics to GIF/JPEG format
• Code imagemaps, cgi scripts, Java/Javascript applets, animated graphics, sound, video, etc.
• Ensure server security
• Interpret server activity logs (report on "hit rates")

Some Key Concerns
Security - Webmasters must have full read/write access to the server which hosts their site. This includes shared server resource areas like the cgi-bin directory, where scripts and programs (rather than HTML pages) are stored. For external servers, this requires a SecurID access card. The more people who have access to the server, the greater our chances of a security breach become.

Accidental Erasure - Because the "home page" in each directory is named "index.html", it is easy for an inexperienced or inattentive webmaster to accidentally log in to the wrong directory and overwrite another business' web site. Although this has not happened yet, a simple error once temporarily disabled all image maps on the entire www.dupont.com server.

Cost Effectiveness - The level of web activity varies greatly from business to business. In some cases, extensive web sites have been set up at an SBU level. In others, some products have a web site for some market segments, but not others. In cases where a number of products in an SBU each have a small web site with a need for webmasters, it may make sense to provide a single resource at the SBU level to accommodate the needs of the multiple businesses.

A Useful Analogy
The central issue can be sketched in terms of the early days of the automotive industry. At first, Henry Ford and his colleagues were capable of fixing broken windshields, dented fenders, and clogged fuel lines. You could take your car back to the factory and they would squeeze you in somehow.

But once the large scale production of automobiles became an assembly-line factory, car owners were not welcomed back with open arms. Some car owners became master mechanics. But most were willing to pay for service. Shade tree mechanics came first, but eventually a whole industry of dealer service and authorized repair shops arose to fill the need. That's about where we stand today. "No, I can't keep on posting your weekly press releases, I'm designing and building web projects for other businesses. Find yourself a webmaster."