The Operations of The British Council Web

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The Operations ofThe British CouncilWeb
Paul Squires Webmaster The British Council, Web
Team Manchester
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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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The British Council Home Page
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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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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.britc
oun-canada.org Chile www.britcoun.cl Estonia www.b
ctallinn.ee Germany www.britcoun.de Greece www.bri
tcoun.gr Hong Kong www.britcoun.org.hk Israel www.
britcoun.il Italy www.britcoun.it Malaysia www.bri
tcoun.org.my New Zealand www.britcoun.org.nz Paki
stan www.britcoun.org.pk Poland www.britcoun.org.p
l Portugal www.britcounpt.org Slovenia www.british
council.si Sri Lanka www.britcoun.lk Taiwan www.br
itcoun.org.tw Thailand www.britcoun.or.th Turkey w
ww.britcoun.org.tr Ukraine www.bc.kiev.ua USA www.
britishcouncil-usa.org
COUNTRIES THAT HAVE LOCAL LANGUAGE
CONTENT Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia E
cuador Estonia Germany Hong Kong Mexico Peru Taiwa
n 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 andInformation 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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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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BC Web Team Activities

• co-ordination of incoming material
• editing
• quality testing
• uploading

Editorial Assistants Assistant Web Master
Web Master Web Manager

• maintenance of the site
• introducing new technologies
• policy and outreach

Training Manager

• 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