The chief resource for such web issues as how to design your site, how to publicize its existence, how to make it secure, and which server to put it on is the ITC web site. I strongly recommend beginning with the site listed below if you have any thought at all of creating a (non-Toolkit) web site for research or teaching purposes:

 http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/web/

I will just mention that the three chief servers available to English department faculty and graduate instructors are Blue (blue.unix.virginia.edu, also known as the Home Directory); Faculty (faculty.virginia.edu) and English (www.engl.virginia.edu). Space on Blue is automatically allotted to everyone at UVa these days, but if you have been here for longer than ten years it might be the case that you'll need to create a new account. You can ask about this by e-mailing accounts@virginia.edu. Space on Faculty is available on request; see the ITC link above. Space on English must be obtained by contacting the English Department administrator.

If you need a your site to integrate with a database (for instance, if you want students to submit digital images that they have found or created themselves, and you then want to make all those images available online), then you'll need either to hire someone or to spend about a year learning how to do this yourself. It's a bit of a complex task, and the best way to go about it is to schedule a consultation with me or to request a project consultation with the experts at the Digital Media Lab on the third floor of Clemons.

If you do decide to hire someone to build you a site of any kind, you could do worse than to advertise in your own classes or in the Cavalier Daily for a talented undergraduate--it's likely to be the cheapest option, and it will be educational for them, and it will give them a chance to collaborate with you. (They love that.) The Digital Media Lab may also be able to recommend someone.