I think having a "fixed location" for conference Web sites is a good idea. In addition to the usability issues, it also means that people will know where to go to get information about the next conference instead of having to search for it. I think it also allows for ease of archiving and creates a better ethos for travelling conferences.

At the same time, labor poses a real issue. Does a central or standard hosting plan effectively multiply the labor the organization's website designers would have to take on? They'd end up troubleshooting problems and responding to users in situations that have traditionally been the the responsibility of local hosting groups, for instance.

Well, if Web sites are set up using CMS systems like Drupal, the hosting organization could probably just assign administrative privileges to a representative of the local hosting group and allow them to handle setting up and managing the site. Or, someone on the administrative board could offer to be the "technology liason" and handle troubleshooting with local groups (I'd actually volunteer for something like that for Digital WPA or C&W).

Of course, handling registration details with local organizations might still be tricky. However, I definitely think conference information and proposal submission could and should be handled through a centralized site. It's time to stop asking local groups to re-invent the wheel each year.

My guess is that the technology support issues would definitely decrease dramatically after the first year because (a) many repeat conference attendees would already be familiar with the entire process and (b) howto support materials could be created and tweaked through feedback from users. Tutorials such as this one that I created for the online submission process are easy to create.

As for non-technology related submission problems (i.e., duplicate submission), I think you are right, Erin, in that a conference organizer site administrator could handle those.

I'm going to take the opposite stance. When we discussed this issue for C&W, one of the points that I raised was that people might -want- to do their own thing. For instance, TTU has a ton of technology and they will likely want to showcase it for C&W06. Beyond that, they may well want to have local control for myriad reasons. For instance, I might be able to do everything I want with Perl and I know next to nothing about drupal. It's not fair to me to say, well, you have to host it on this box you know nothing about in a tool that you don't know how to use.

I think it's fine to suggest that you'll have a centralized location that points to all the sites and that -can- host; but I wouldn't want to create a system that says it -must- be the host.

I think the real issue is location. If a fixed site exists for a conference, it will be easier only to find information for upcoming conferences, but also to locate information from past conferences. Consider the difficulties, for example, in locating all of the past Computers and Writing Conference Web sites. If all of the sites were archived on a single cwconference.org site, it would be much easier to see what had been presented, how issues have changed (or stayed the same) over time, and so on.

As for taking advantage of content-management systems or coming up with new and improved interfaces, that's something that can be accomplished on the same site. You can run multiple servers and multiple content management systems, allowing you to keep older systems working (such as a custom CMS) even as you shift to new systems (such as the latest update to Drupal or ColdFusion).

I'm all for centralizing the location of key information in the field. I find little benefit, for example, in having old C&W or WAC conferences on different servers. But I don't think that centralizing will necessarily mean imposing strict interface and system requirements on developers.

Thanks,

Mike Palmquist
Colorado State University
Email: Mike.Palmquist@ColoState.edu
Web: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~mp

From my perspective, Mike's right. Certainly different technologies can be hosted on the same domain name either as a subfolder or subdomain. Besides, my experience with C&W websites for the conference I have attended has been that none of them have really shown off any new technologies except perhaps differences in web design/theme or different registration engines. Suppose instead the effort of putting together a different design or creating a new registration engine were channeled into improving the user experience, stimulating community interaction on the site (Purdue tried a blog, but it was unsuccessful--maybe it was too new, or maybe the blog needed to be integrated rather than something extra), and providing additional resources. But suppose someone did want to create say a Live Journal or add in enCore MOO specifically for the conference. That could be done as a subfolder or a subdomain. Whether or not that was even hosted on the main domain, it still might better serve the community to put basic conference information and registration system in the same location.

I also want to add that in the case of C&W, many past sites have now disappeared. Link rot. It's easy to see how this happens. Conference organizers create the conference site on an institutional server. In later years, that server goes kaput and no one can find the backups, the institution decides to reclaim the domain, the main conferences organizers who created the site have left the institution, no one at that instituion is willing to update the technology to preserve the site, etc. Keeping conference sites alive lets us to preserve the history of our field by allowing the community to take charge of that preservation.

Last, Traci states, "It's not fair to me to say, well, you have to host it on this box you know nothing about in a tool that you don't know how to use." We aren't talking about rocket science here :) It would be different if the site weren't already setup. But once it's in place, it's not going to be a difficult task to put up content and learn the basics of using the site resources. Instead, let's consider that this might actually be easier then reinventing the wheel each time.

One of the issues is the organization finding a home. For example, the International Writing Center Association had been, I believe at Syracuse (or was it SUNY Albany), but the professor who maintained it was moving to another department and so the WWW site couldn't be sustained there.

Michelle Eodice queried me and others about a solution/location and I recommend using Interversity to host (Bedford/St. Martin's pays the hosting fee for the IWCA site).

This provides a location that's independent of any one department. Even the most seemingly stable departments and programs can be undone quickly -- ECB at Michigan disbandonment and the disaspora of Condon, Butler, Monroe and others -- is just one example.

So there's value in having some part of the organization's WWW presence maintained in a location not affiliated with a particular school.

The 7C's also approved a vote for Eric to host the computersandwriting.org, or a variant of that, again w/ B/SM donating the hosting fee. I know he made a stab at porting the blog started in Hawai'i over, but don't know what came of it ultimately.

Still, that offer remains on the table. If the C&W community wants to set up a permanent address independent of any particular location with Eric, we're happy to contribute to that cause.

I don't think that necessarily prohibits a host site from doing their own WWW work if they've a mind to. That's what links are for. Though, given the complexity of mounting and running a conference, having a site to turn to might make some of the set up easier. And you can arrange the hosting so that local committee is given the access they need to refresh the site and use currently available technologies.

In the meantime, if there's a need to recall our conference history, we can talk about what it might take to recover as much as we can from Alexa and any other sources and we can set up a kind of digital archive of conference homepages, discussions, and other elements --both on line and on site -- at the new location.

This again would be project that B/SM would be happy to support.

Nick Carbone

"The 7C's also approved a vote for Eric to host the computersandwriting.org, or a variant of that, again w/ B/SM donating the hosting fee. I know he made a stab at porting the blog started in Hawai'i over, but don't know what came of it ultimately."

Eric and I did get it ported over. It's now a matter of figuring out specifically what to do with it to configure it as more of a community site with a different focus.

So I'm thinking about how an agreement might play out.

Right now, conference hosts have responsibility for everything online, to include designing, building and maintaining a website, as well as doing the same for proposal and registration systems. (I'm assuming that accommodations would be handled directly by a hotel or dorm, but that may be a faulty assumption.)

If a consistent, central server and CMS always hosted the conference websites, even if facilitated by different tool sets, then the local organizers would still design, build, and maintain content, but they would instead manage existing proposal and registration systems, rather than design and build something new. The existing systems would, for example, receive and filter proposals, and then the local organizers would facilitate their review by evaluators, communication of the results to proposal authors, etc. In other words, the server administrator/s would not have to take on those tasks, right?

I'm making assumptions about organizational structure, etc. in the example above, but I think it makes the point, still, for various conferences. I'm trying to delve into the details a little bit.

Nick's right: the IWCA website was at Syracuse, and its designer was Bruce Pegg. Now, you'll find the site at http://www.writingcenters.org, and the designer is Clint Gardner.

Thought I'd add the link in case anyone wants to visit.

James

Much like in the way the NMA and Exec Board on the wpacouncil.org site are using the site for their specific purposes for discussion and voting, conference organizers for an organizational site are yet another group that would use the site for their needs. The CMS merely facilitates this. System administrators on the site just assist with that facilitation. They don't get involved in running the conference.

I think a good analogy is a MOO where a user can build their own space. If a CMS is vesatile enough, the conference organizers use the site system administrators to build their own space within the site, and then they use it for managing content, proposal submission, etc., as they need to.

I like the idea of a permanent home for a conference site. We just went, maybe are going, through this with TYCA-Pacific Northwest. Our site was hosted at a particular college and we decided we wanted the organization to take precedence over the hosting institution, largely because the person at that school is heading toward retirement. I can't add much to what others have said on this except that I like the idea (since I'd like to bring you all to Spokane some day, when the news of our rather disreputable mayor has faded from the headlines). I, for one, don't have the time, and probably the ability, to build a site from scratch. I could, however, work within an established interface with some help. I think having a more-or-less permanent space can open up hosting of the conference to folks who might otherwise be run off by having to reinvent the wheel.

I agree with the concerns Traci expressed about forcing people into an interface they may not want or be able to work with, but most hosting services (and I don't know if this is true at interversity or not) seem able to host a drupal, perl or whatever people might want to work with, and likely there would be a ready supply of in-house help for those people as well. This might even free potential hosts from the tech support issue as whoever is being paid to host the site would, at least in part, be responsible for providing that help. Wouldn't they?

Bradley