Content Management The develop in-house case

1
Content ManagementThe develop in-house case

• Gareth McAleese
• Web and New Media Manager
• Public Affairs
• University of Ulster

2
CMS Develop In-house

• The UU Environment
• Problem to be Solved
• Our approach
• Where we are at
• Where we are going
• (Ill not duplicate the rationale from what
  Ricky said its all similar)

3
The UU Environment

• Strong development team in-house six members of
  staff
• Centralised web group with responsibility for
  development of corporate website
• Large amount of existing web-based systems
  developed build on/integrate with these
• Good experience of developing content/workflow
  based systems
• Unix/Apache/PHP/Perl/MySQL (and Oracle)
• A mini CMS developed before
• No dedicated software budget

4
The Problem

• Information owner does not update page
• The sites a mess!
• Our site is a laughing stock
• Doesnt look corporate or consistent
• Cant be good for business
• Cant find information
• Patchwork of sites, inconsistent in presentation
  and navigation
• Non compliance usability accessibility
• The bloke who did it has left
• Standard web publishing problems

5
UU Problems

• We have a good level of visual identity, content
  not bad, but
• Lack of technical knowledge in departments
• Lack of ownership/management of content
• Navigation can be problematic as you drill down
  the site
• Chasing our tails updating/adding content our
  job is to develop the tools to enable content to
  be produced and managed
• We dont have enough blokes to do the job!

6
Our Approach

• Lots of discussion/design before we even started
  development work
• Development of a very extensive content
  repository much more than needed
• Development of a web content management
  framework/interface - everything wizard driven
• Based on a SCRUM methodology short
  bursts/cycles get something working, release
  get something else working release

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Where we are at?

• Basic system up and running, very simple workflow
• New improved html web editor
• Limited testing roll-out to few key/keen
  departments feedback is positive, comments
  useful
• Approach proven/demonstrated to key
  committees/opinion makers
• Reviewing where we are at and identifying next
  phase of development

8
Where we are going?

• Adding some required features mainly to do with
  the templates rather than core functionality
• Making things easier to use based on feedback
• Next set of features almost identified
• Development push over the summer months major
  release in September
• Integration with corporate LDAP/single sign-on
• Starting to roll-out and train
• Regular feedback meetings

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Problems

• We have one less bloke to do all the current and
  expanding work makes it hard to get development
  work done
• User demand/expectation high our own worst
  enemy
• Make sure your blokes dont leave!
• Involve users early on they are the ones that
  will have to use the system
• Make sure you thoroughly test

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Questions

• Please feel free to ask Ricky -)