Bringing a Web Content Management System to IU

Bringing a Web Content Management System to IU Brian Mc. Gough, Director Enterprise Software, UITS

Session Agenda • • What is a Web Content Management System (WCMS) What can a WCMS do for us Product Selection Timeline review (Pilot and Production) Contributors (Core and Pilot) Ownership and getting involved Quick Demo of an early prototype Wrap up

What is a WCMS • Wikipedia says: “A Web content management system (WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions. ” Additionally, “Unlike Web-site builders like Microsoft Front. Page or Adobe Dreamweaver, a WCMS allows non-technical users to make changes to an existing website with little or no training. A WCMS typically requires an experienced coder to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators. ”

What can a WCMS do for us? • Non Technical staff can make changes to content (separate content from design) – Forms Based or WYSIWYG approaches • Web Standards Compliance can be enforced – section 508, W 3 C, etc – XHTML compliance • Version Control and Change History – Centrally stored and backed up – Reverting changes is possible

What can a WCMS do for us? • Workflows for change management – Set flows on a site or page by page basis – Ensure high profile pages are reviewed before they go live • Content re-use capabilities – Ability to create reusable assets (video, images, etc) • Consistent Layout for pages through templates – Sites can leverage common templates • Dynamic Menu, Navigation, Breadcrumbs generation

Product Selection • There an incredible number of vendors and open source WCMS solutions available • A task force was established to refine our needs and determine candidate solutions (not an easy job given the volume of products in the space) • Product Demo’s and Vendor Visits were conducted • Hannon Hill’s product called Cascade Server was chosen at the end of the process

Product Selection • Cascade Server from Hannon Hill – Was selected for the following primary reasons: • Many other Universities went with this product and had success • It offers us a very scalable solution – Content authoring is separated from Content Serving • Ability to leverage existing infrastructure investments like webserve • Ability to push content to other web server environments as needed • Provides the bulk of the features that we were seeking • Product is actively being improved and enhanced based on customer requirements, with higher education having a strong voice • Competitive pricing

Timeline Review • • June 2007: Kickoff and preparation for evaluation July 2007 -February 2008: Product evaluation March 2008: RFP released June 2008: CMS chosen, pilot project core team created July 2008: Pilot project participants established August 2008: Vendor-supplied training September 2008 - February 2009: Pilot project phase February 2009: Production Launch (on boarding new customers) • For updates view the UITS projects page

Contributors (Core) • Many UITS units • • • Enterprise Software Support Teaching and Learning (IT Training) IT Security and Policy office Enterprise Infrastructure • Complete List on our Wiki Page

Contributors (Pilot) • The Pilot groups: • • • Office of the VP for IT Office of Communication Services IU Northwest IU South Bend IUPUI Registrar IUPUI School of Medicine • Complete List on our Wiki Page

Ownership and Getting Involved • UITS will own the “plumbing” function of the service • Departments, Schools, and Campuses will be the Owners of their sites and will guide the direction of the implementations of Sites • Stay Tuned to progress on the project via: – Our Project Page – Our Wiki Page – Subscribe to our wcms-l listserve for news and progress updates

Quick Demo of an Early Prototype • Since Brad did not have the opportunity to show our early prototype this morning, I will take the honor… – Authoring Site • http: //wcmstest. iu. edu/ – Web Serving Site • http: //webtest. iu. edu/~ovpit/bios/bwheeler. htm

Wrap Up • Many Things We will be doing before production – – – – – CAS integration Account creation and management Asset management within Cascade Training development & documentation Production environment architecture Overall workflow from first request to open access Library of templates Library of images KB Articles Best practices

Wrap Up • Many interesting and compelling features will be offered and available soon • UITS and other units are working out the kinks and integration points • Training on the software will be made available for site designers and end users • Help us help you by staying in touch, and fostering this new partnership

Questions? • Thanks For your Time – Brian Mc. Gough, Director Enterprise Software, UITS • For follow up questions not answered today, submit to wcms-l@indiana. edu after you have subscribed