Content Management System for HSC Website

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Content Management Systemfor H-SC Website
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Introduction

• What is working well?
• 35 or so content editors across campus
• College brand consistent across entire site
• Increased viewing from 3,860 pages/day in 2001 to
  14,500 pages/day in 2008.
• Robust server with Windows 2003 and IIS 6 and
  over 900GB of free space direct connection to
  Jenzabar data, use of mysql/postgresql databases
  and php and perl for interactivity between users
  and data

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Introduction

• What Problems Do We Need to Solve?
• Out-dated design
• Out-dated content
• Content used across multiple sites
• Out-dated FrontPage editor
• Image editing
• Marketing initiatives hard to measure

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Overview

• A Content Management System (CMS) will address
  all of these issues and provide many more new
  features to enhance the H-SC website.

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Design

• THEN Tables layout for 800 x 600 screen
  resolution
• NOW

501280
4
15. 320 x 396 with 312 visits pdas/cell phones
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Design

• Homepage with Sample Screen Resolutions

1920 x 1200 on 24 monitor
1280 x 800 on 15 laptop
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Design

• THEN Audio/video minimal due to dial-up
  connections in 2001/2004
• NOW

64
2.5
YouTube has set the standard as one of top ten
most viewed sites on the Internet. Flash is
commonplace on College homepages and campus tours.
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Design

• THEN 1997 -- web in all text
• 2001 homepage all images and links redesign
  took 8 months
• 2004 redesign of banner images, roll-over nav
  took two years
• From 12,000 pages in 2000 to over 50,000 now. To
  redesign site as it is now would take over two
  years.

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CMS Design

• All content in database or xml
• All design in CSS and templates
• Could roll out main site in 6 months to 1 year
• NEXT redesign would take much less time only
  CSS and templates would need to be redone.

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Content

• New pages built all the time old pages rarely
  deleted links to old content hidden throughout.
• CMS allows publication dates and expiration dates
• CMS has link checker to correct old link
  problems.

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Content

• Use across multiple departments
• NOW news article manually reformatted to fit
  design under academics
• CMS will allow content to be pulled from News to
  Admissions newsletter, academic departments,
  study abroad, College homepage automatically

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Menus

• NOW software generates roll-over menus
• Homepage, departments, extended homepage set
• All edited by webmaster
• Site index generated manually in two formats
• CMS will automatically generate menus when pages
  added within each department
• Automatic for homepage and site index

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Editing

• NOW most content editors use FrontPage
• Doesnt support CSS easily new HTML 5 standards
  move all formatting out of HTML and into CSS
• IE 8 is using some HTML 5
• Not standards compliant
• CMS is standards compliant
• CSS and templates will enforce use of CSS for
  formatting but will work much like MS-Word for
  editors

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Content

• Standards compliance enhances download speed
  and interoperability across different browsers.

• Are you getting your message across in 2 minutes
  11 seconds?
• Includes finding and reading

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Images

• Pictures downloaded to web from cameras
• Sizing in FrontPage does not decrease file size
• CMS will have built-in image sizing for showing
  on the website and thumbnails for links to larger
  images.

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Marketing

• Initiatives that drive users to the website need
  current information
• Measuring results on the website needs content
  specific to initiative separate from regular
  content
• CMS provides more control over this
• Set content to begin and expire at certain times
• Use Google Analytics to measure goals

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Conclusion

• CMS will improve the H-SC website by
• Managing redesigns easily and efficiently
• Expiring out-dated content and deleting old links
• Sharing content across multiple sites
• Replacing out-dated FrontPage editor and
  enforcing standards compliance
• Enabling image editing for everyone
• Analyzing marketing initiatives more effectively

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Next Steps

• What are the Next Steps in the Process?
• Content Management Systems Matrix
• H-SC requirements
• Web Oversight Committee Approval
• Choose a CMS by December 15 and submit in budget
  process in January 2009.
• Purchase in July 2009 Begin Site Redesign

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Resources

• Google Analytics for the data and graphics about
  H-SC website.
• Content Management Systems comparison website-
  CMS Matrix (see Excel files Enterprise level,
  Open Source)
• Hannon Hills Content Management Systems Buyers
  Guide
• Ektron CMS400 demo, Ingeniux demo, University of
  Richmond presentation, visit with Longwood
  University Dir. Of Web Communications (RedDot),
  talked with Hollins College webmaster, installed
  test versions of Drupal and Modx

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Resources

• Internet Archive Wayback Machine
  http//web.archive.org/web//http//www.hsc.edu
• Colleges/Universities using various CMS products
• UVA Ingeniux, Ektron CMS400
• VT Rhythmyx
• Roanoke and Lynchburg College Ingeniux
• UR, William Mary -- Cascade Server
• WM blog on redesign
• Longwood RedDot
• CASE Awards for web design 2008 Judges Report

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Resources

• Schools using Drupal
• Sites using MODx