The Office of Web Communications (Web Comm) is part of the Department of University Relations (UR), and, as such, contributes to the fulfillment of UR's mission.
University Relations provides communications and marketing services to the University's academic and administrative units.
UR communicates information about the University's programs, research, history, and activities to the general public, alumni, media, current and prospective students and their parents, faculty, administration and staff, residents of Evanston and Chicago, leaders in business, industry and government, and current and prospective donors.
Web Communications handles several different services for Northwestern University. The office:
Web Communications leads and oversees the activities of the University's Web Steering Committee. This committee is comprised of individuals involved or interested in web development at Northwestern.
Within the Web Steering Committee, designated work groups:
In its day-to-day role as an in-house consultant, the bulk of Web Comm's project work consists of web site re-design for various entities within the University. Clients include schools, academic departments, administrative units, and affiliated centers. The office works in varying degrees of partnership with clients; some clients have their own design team and require only minimal assistance with scripting or templates, for example, while others need the full range of services available.
Web Comm is a collaborative environment in which each client or project is assigned a project lead who serves as point person for clients, staff, and the director. Projects generally have a developer and designer team at their core, with editor/content manager and office coordinator participation as well as student/web tech assistance at key points in the development process. Staff members are encouraged to seek the perspective of others in the office when investigating solutions to client needs. All projects are overseen by the director of Web Communications.
Full time staff share responsibility for supervising student web techs. Web techs primarily perform tasks related to top-level page maintenance and client site building.