Workshops

Mark teaches a variety of half-day and full-day workshops that explore the latest research and best-practices in higher education web design, development, and management.  These workshops can be customized for your particular needs and skill level. Please contact Mark for details.

Current workshop offerings include:

Building a Social Media Framework

Social Media is having a major impact on higher education, presenting new opportunities to connect and build relationships with all constituents. As social media becomes increasingly important, colleges and universities need to plan accordingly to fully leverage the power and potential of these new communication channels and support models. This workshop provides a framework for implementing social media from strategic planning to implementation and evaluation. Topics include understanding institutional culture, aligning social media strategy with institutional strategy, mitigating risk, creating policies and guidelines, staffing and resources, organizational models, participation models, and metrics.

Web Governance and Management

Many higher education institutions still operate without any formal web governance and management structure.  As a result, the web is viewed as a cost center rather than a strategic asset.  In addition, the lack of formal management results in resource inefficiencies. This workshop is for campus administrators and web teams and is designed to help understand the challenges of creating and sustaining a quality web presence,  and provides advice and guidance in working through these challenges. Topics include:

  • Creating a comprehensive web strategy that aligns the web with institutional goals and objectives
  • Measuring web ROI with a focus on key performance indicators
  • A review of the pros and cons of various governance models, committee structures and reporting structures
  • Establishing decision-making authority
  • Funding and resource allocation models

Guerrilla UCD: A practical approach to User Centered Design

This workshop provides practical advice on how to integrate UCD into every facet of web development, regardless of the size of the organization or the size of the budget. The goal is to embed UCD into the organizational culture. Topics  include:

  • A review of UCD methodologies including benchmarking, surveys, focus groups, usability testing, personas, card sorting, expert reviews, and web analytics
  • How to determine the right amount of usability testing
  • Balancing user needs with business needs
  • The relationship between focus groups, surveys and usability tests
  • The relationship between web analytics and usability tests
  • The relationship of UCD to web accessibility