How many are in your department?

[Kris Isaacson]

So, staffing is a big issue here and I was wondering what your staffing situation is like w/ regards to web design/marketing communications. I'll give you an example:

I am the only web person in the Integrated Marketing (Communications) office. We have a part-time publications director/copywriter who is filling in for someone else that is still on staff, but has interim duties elsewhere this year. We have a media relations person and a person that heads up the department.  I can additionally pull from, for input and some development the two web people from IT. So all said and done when it comes to web and social media there is me.

[Carmen Lowry]

We for the past few years have had 2 people dedicated to the public web sites -- 1 Web Developer in IT and 1 Web Content Specialist, who is also the Web Designer, in PR. We develop and maintain 3 public-facing web sites and one internal site totaling about maybe 1200 or more pages all together. The Media Relations Specialist in PR has been handling publishing content on the main Facebook and Twitter page.

We're currently in the process of trying to restructure our team, which, in the end, will give us 4 members -- 2 developers and 2 frontend/creative. I would be curious to also know what expertise other web teams have and how that's divided between positions. Based on my experience, the ideal web team should include the following expertise: web design, writing/content, information architecture, usability, accessibility, web analytics, front-end development (HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.) and back-end development (server-side languages, systems analyst, SQL and database design), project management, etc. My guess is that depending on the size of your team, how expertise is divided will be all over the road, but hope that someone out there may have a good model that will fit our environment.

More specifically, does anyone have a User Experience Specialist on their team? What is their role relative to other roles, such as the Web Designer?

Thanks!

[Andrew Grohowski]

We mostly (except the programmers) all do user experience testing and studies. I enjoy user experience work, but more so when it's combined with data analytics, not so much the testing and focus groups. I need a lot of numbers and facts to "prove" something. =)

[Andrew Grohowski]

We have a team of 5, give or take one or two depending on the project. 2 programmers, 3 content specialists. The director of new media gives us the majority of her time, so she could be 6. We have the main responsibility of social media divided among a few of those, including myself, by account but we all fill in the cracks where we can. I'm responsible for Twitter, but I'll do some every now and again on FB.

[Michael Fienen]

I am the alpha and the omega.

[Suzanne Klaus]

I have been a one person Web team since 1995; although, I do have a couple of part-time student employees who do a great job. Until about a year ago, I did much of the writing myself. Now the Academic Marketing Coordinator provides most of that for me (from another department). In our department, we have the PR director, a news bureau director (assistant PR director), an art director and the secretary. For the most part, they provide very little, in some cases no, support for the Website. Regarding social media, our provost has adopted that as one of his goals, so the AMC (who reports to him) has been helping me with that. I am getting the impression that many universities are operating with very small staffs in the web/social media arena, even though it has been around for as long as it has. Just recently, our president commanded the IT programmers to support me better. So far, that seems to be going fine, so there is hope for the future.

[Marc Westenburg]

Our web/marketing/PR breakdown is as follows (this does not include IT or print shop):

1. Director of Marketing
2. 4 Marketing Specialists (full-time) who handle specific markets (high school, current student, young adult, adult, minority/Hispanic, business, continuing education, etc.) and internal clients
3. 1 Marketing Specialist (part-time) who handles additional jobs, as necessary
4. 1 Creative Manager
5. 1 Web Manager
6. 1 Senior Graphic Designer (who also does web)
7. 2 Graphic Designers (full-time)
8. 2 Graphic Designers (part-time)
9. 1 Media/PR Specialist
10. 1 Media/PR/Marketing temp

[Suzanne Klaus]

What is your enrollment? Ours is around 12,000 students this fall.

[Marc Westenburg]

We just recently reported a yearly enrollment of about 26,500 students in credit courses. I don't have final numbers for Fall 2010 yet.

[Suzanne Klaus]

So more than twice our size - I was making sure the comparison was valid. I suppose one could make the case that you have pretty much the same amount of work, or at least the same things that need to be done. We do most everything with student employees.

[Kris Isaacson]

Wow! That is an impressive staff. I'm envious.

[David Wissore]

Looks like you are blessed with staff. I'd be curious how many folks in your IT shop were dedicated to the web as well. Could you get those numbers too? Also, do you have any trainers or who would that fall to in your organization?

[Marc Westenburg]

"Trainers," in what sense...?

As for IT, I don't know how many we have over there, but they are the ones who handle anything housed within out Student Portal.