Web Committee Annual Report 2021

submitted by Kerry Masteller

Current Roster

  • Ellwood Colahan (2025)
  • Vaughan Hennen (2021)
  • Raymond G. Heigemeir (2023)
  • Jason Imbesi (2021)
  • Amy Jackson (2021)
  • Laura Jacyna (2025)
  • Kerry Masteller (chair, 2023)
  • Ana Munandar (2025)
  • Anne Shelley (2025)
  • Abbey E. Thompson (2021)
  • A-R Editions (ex-officio)
  • Katie Buehner (ex-officio, 2021)
  • Kristi Bergland (ex-officio, 2025)
  • Elizabeth Cribbs (ex-officio, 2024)
  • Joshua A. Henry (ex-officio, 2022)
  • Stephen P. Henry (ex-officio, 2023)
  • Jacey Kepich (ex-officio, 2025)
  • Tracey E. Rudnick (ex-officio, 2022)
  • Karen Berry (ex-officio, 2025)

List of Previous Goals and Progress Made

  • Website Content
    • The Committee continues to update basic content on the site at the request of board members and committee chairs, including the landing page for E-Notes.
    • The Web Managers and committee Chair began using Freshdesk, a free ticketing system to triage and keep track of requests for site updates; other committee members were added after initial testing. Using a ticketing system allows us to more easily distribute work among committee members while monitoring what remains to be done.
  • Migration of MLA Website
    • Under the direction of the Web Manager and Assistant Web Manager, work remains underway to prepare for and track the migration of MLA’s website from YourMembership to Wordpress.
  • Subtitling of Conference Presentations 
    • Making our conference presentations accessible furthers our core organizational values of access and inclusivity. However, reliance on purely volunteer efforts by the membership has proved unsustainable: given the amount of work required to correct and format subtitles, paying a third-party vendor will result in more timely and usable video content.
  • Instability and unanticipated functional changes to the Your Membership platform continued to plague our work over the last year, bringing new urgency to the website migration planned for later in 2021.
  • The addition of four new members to the committee after the 2021 Annual Meeting (Woody Colahan, Laura Jacyna, Ana Munandar, and Anne Shelley) has given us the opportunity to revisit and update our training materials and documentation.

List of Future Goals

  • Review/revision of committee handbook and public-facing help documentation
    • Technology; Organizational Excellence
    • Changes to YM’s structure, particularly its Groups features, necessitate revisions to documentation. 
  • Content review of website
    • Organizational Excellence
    • The committee plans to review the existing pages of the website to find and correct small errors.
  • Addition of robust, easy-to-find Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion section to website
    • Organizational Excellence; Membership; Advocacy; Value of the Profession
    • In consultation with the Diversity Committee and Board, build a landing page on the website to highlight MLA’s DEI initiatives, including its committees, advocacy statements and policies, and relevant grants
  • Complete Migration of MLA website to Wordpress
    • Technology; Organizational Excellence; Value of the Profession
    • Work on transfer of MLA’s site to Wordpress, directed by the Web Manager, began in early summer 2019. When completed, MLA’s website will be easier to maintain and more useful for organization members and others interested in the profession.
    • Migration of our hosting to Reclaim is planned for later this year.
    • Content review and reconciliation between the two versions of the website (current, and Wordpress) will need to be completed before launch of the new site.
  • Committee/Interest Groups needs assessment
    • Technology; Organizational Excellence; Value of the Profession
    • The web managers and committee have received multiple requests from committees and interest groups for more robust and user-friendly website functionality. An unsystematic review of committee and interest group pages reveals that numerous other platforms are in use (Tumblr; institutional LibGuides; Google Groups and Google Drive; Humanities Commons; etc.). A more sustainable and centralized location for committee/IG documentation would also help with preservation of MLA’s activities and procedures, and facilitate smoother transitions when leadership or group membership changes.
    • The committee plans to survey chairs and coordinators to learn more about what they need from the website and other MLA-sponsored platforms.