Technical and editorial administration of a World-Wide-Web site during a period of rapid growth: the OncoLink experience

OncoLink is a cancer information resource on the World-Wide-Web (WWW) that provides a wide variety of information for cancer patients and healthcare providers. Since its introduction in March, 1994 it has enjoyed success as demonstrated by an over 31-fold increase in usage as of February, 1996. Current utilization exceeds 1.1 million accesses per month. The content of OncoLink has also expanded greatly, with new items being added daily. In addition, OncoLink has been the recipient of numerous awards from a variety of agencies and organizations. During this period of rapid growth, the complexity of managing and maintaining OncoLink has likewise increased. This work may be divided into three categories: content editing, technical (or production) editing, and web site maintenance. Consequently, we have developed numerous administrative procedures to handle this workload. After implementing these new administrative strategies, we were able to greatly reduce the need for face-to-face meetings of our Editorial and Production Staffs. This paper describes our experience with developing efficient strategies for managing the daily operation of OncoLink during a period of rapid growth.