CMS

Offering a consistent look and feel on the Web at a big university is a challenge. When implementing a content management system across hundreds of units or departments isn’t an option – for budget reason, some institutions have to adopt a different approach.

At the University of Alabama, the central web communications team includes only 4 people. That’s why Andy Rainey, director of Web Communications, is a big proponent of the “teach-them-how-to-fish” approach. His team has always designed and published web resources to help the larger university community get up to speed with their web presence, using more recently WordPress as their web platform of choice.

Last April they launched 3 branded WordPress themes to create the winning combo of ease of use with WordPress and consistency with a unique web template. With the release earlier this summer of WP 3.0, UA Web Communication Team was able to merge the 3 themes into a single one including some very powerful customization options to accommodate the special needs of different units on campus.

Here’s a regular second-level page, the Admissions web page on the main website:

And, here are a few screenshots of the WP 3.0 template:

I asked Andy Rainey, director of Web Communications at the University of Alabama, to answer a few questions about this project.

1) Did you develop the WP theme in-house? Who did it?

The theme was developed in-house by our Web Communications team, led by developer Matthew Muro. Matthew previously built and released our first UA-branded WordPress themes earlier this spring, but as the new WP 3.0 version emerged, he took the opportunity to significantly improve the functionality and flexibility of the themes. The 3.0 theme utilizes a custom admin panel that provides control of major design aspects of a site without requiring customization of the code itself. He was also able to create a single, united theme based on our UA Web Templates that provided a number of different layout and configuration options, instead of requiring users to choose which theme they wanted up front. In this way, we hope the theme becomes more fluid and flexible to current and future needs.

2) How did your campus community react to the launch of the WP themes?

The feedback we have received has been very positive. In fact, the provision of this theme is in large part the result of listening to much discussion among campus webmasters and functional users. The need for a “plug-and-play” solution for campus web sites has been the most significant need we’ve heard in the past few years, and while any solution requires some degree of effort and customization to be successful, we feel the theme is a great resource for units lacking full-time web expertise or resources to obtain that expertise to be able to easily build an accessible, usable, effective and institutionally-branded web site. The theme is provided as a true open-source resource, with no stipulations other than it must be used for an official or unofficial University of Alabama web site only, and that its usage must not violate general UA web policies. Significant time and energy has gone into creating tutorials and resources on our Web Guide site that make customizing the theme to meet specific needs a simpler process.

3) Do you provide hosting for their WP install? Do you offer to run their website from your own WP 3.0 install?

Hosting for WordPress web sites is available through the campus’s office of information technology, and they’re working to further streamline the process to improve how these sites are deployed and managed. As WP 3.0′s code base is now merged with WordPress MU, it should become easier and more efficient to roll out new WordPress web sites in a more scalable and repeatable manner going forward.

4) Any good examples of implemented WP UA websites to share?

This theme was just released a few weeks ago, so really it’s just getting started. But we have seen great results with using WordPress for institutional web sites, which informed our decision to offer WordPress themes. Our news center suite (UA news , Dialog – our faculty and staff newsletter and and our magazine Research) are custom WordPress sites, and by using WordPress we’ve been able to empower content providers to manage these sites almost exclusively. And we previously tested the first version of our UA WordPress themes with our own Editorial Style Manual as a proof-of-concept.
There are many campus web sites already using WordPress, so this new theme provides additional options for those sites to utilize institutional resources and offers others the ability to have that institutional brand. We’re treating this theme as one of our primary offerings to campus at large and we will continue to invest our time and resources to improving the themes and the resources available to those who wish to use them, with the goal of significantly improving the performance, consistency and effectiveness of our overall campus web presence through the most efficient means possible.

My latest UB column is now available in the April issue as well as online: “How to Select the Right CMS: a five-step plan for evaluating web content management systems”

In this column, I provide – with the help of several of your colleagues I interviewed – a blueprint to a successful CMS selection process:

1. Get ready for a new web content management strategy.
2. Start with organizational goals and define how you will measure success.
3. Get your homework done.
4. Perform a comprehensive analysis of needs.
5. Use a complete and foolproof evaluation process

Read the column to get the details.

And, if you’re considering open source content management systems for your next implementation, make sure you register for Open Source CMS Fair, a 3-webinar series scheduled next week. If you attend this series, you’ll get a chance to learn more (and ask your questions) about 3 of the most popular open source CMS in higher education: Drupal, DotCMS and WordPress.

The registration deadline has been postponed to this Friday (April 9, 2010). There are still a few seats available, but register at www.higheredexperts.com/cmsfair ASAP to secure yours.

Last, if you are a University Business reader who has just discovered collegewebeditor.com, welcome! Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog via RSS or email.

Have you noticed how more and more institutions choose open source content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress or DotCMS to power their websites?

The trend has been accelerating these past few months with several high profile redesigned websites such as Duke University and Bates College as well as other redesigns in process.

With more and more higher ed institutions opting for open source solutions, it makes no doubt that these non-commercial solutions should be considered by committees or teams in charge of evaluating possible web content management systems at your institution (that is if you don’t have any or aren’t happy with yours, obviously).

So, if you’re planning to implement a new CMS at your institution, you should definitely consider registering for the first higher ed open source CMS Fair.

What is an open-source CMS Fair?

Think about your traditional college fairs, but for CMS (and without the brochures ;-).

During this 3-webinar series scheduled on April 13, 14 and 15, 2010, you’ll be able to pick the brain of three of your higher ed colleagues who have implemented and managed an open source CMS.

The ultimate goal of this webinar series is really to give you exclusive access to expertise and experience that you’d be able to use in your own evaluation process while comparing 3 of the most popular CMS in higher education: Drupal, WordPress and DotCMS:

DotCMS for Higher Ed Websites
Michael Fienen, Web Marketing Manager at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS, will tell you all you need to know about DotCMS and how this open source content management system can be used to power an institutional website. He will also demonstrate in a pre-recorded demo a few basic user scenarios.

Drupal for Higher Ed Websites
Blyth Morrell, Web Services Manager at Duke University, will tell you all you need to know about Drupal and how this open source content management system can be used to power an institutional website. She will also demonstrate in a pre-recorded demo a few basic user scenarios.

WordPress/WordPress MU for Higher Ed Websites
Shelley Keith, Web Site Coordinator at Southern Arkansas University, will tell you all you need to know about WordPress and WordPress MU and how this open source content management system can be used to power an institutional website. She will also demonstrate in a pre-recorded demo a few basic user scenarios.

And, if you need an extra incentive to register for this great series, how about 2 extra on-demand webinars about CMS implementation and redesigns for free?

If you register by March 30, 2010 for Open-Source CMS Fair, you’ll get free access to these 2 webinars until July 31st, 2010:

How to survive a Website Redesign & a CMS Implementation
(Recorded on February 17, 2010)
Ben Riseling, Manager of Web Operations for the Office of News & Communications at Duke University, will make sure your survive your next website redesign coupled with a CMS implementation. He will share the best tips and tricks he acquired during the 9-month process preceding the launch of the new duke.edu powered by the open source CMS, Drupal, in October 2009.

Website Redesign & CMS Implementation: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(Recorded on April 22, 2009)
Tonya Price, Director, Marketing and Web Operations at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will share what went bad in WPI redesign coupled with a CMS implementation and how her team managed to overcome these challenges. She will also present her recipe to prepare, manage and survive any big website redesign project that will come your way.

If you want to learn why Drupal, WordPress or DotCMS could be your next web content management system, make sure you register for Open Source CMS Fair at www.higheredexperts.com/cmsfair.

I’ve mentioned this series back in December, but it’s time for a reminder packaged with a great offer if you move quickly – as it will be available to a limited number of registered institutions.

Web Redesign Boot Camp is a 3-webinar series scheduled on February 16, 17 and 18.

It will provide you with some great insights, tips and lessons learned to help you (and your stakeholders) get ready for your next redesign.

Featuring Stewart Foss from eduStyle, Chas Grundy from Notre Dame and Ben Riseling from Duke University, this series will give you what you need to know before jumping into a redesign project:

Top trends in higher ed redesigned websites
Stewart Foss, Founder of EduStyle and co-author of The eduStyle Guide to Usable Higher Ed Homepage Design, will present the latest trends in higher ed web design identified among the best redesigned websites (homepage, departmental, admissions, etc.) in 2009.

How to survive a Website Redesign & a CMS Implementation
Ben Riseling, Manager of Web Operations for the Office of News & Communications at Duke University, will make sure your survive your next website redesign coupled with a CMS implementation. He will share the best tips and tricks he acquired during the 9-month process preceding the launch of the new duke.edu powered by the open source CMS, Drupal, in October 2009.

Recipe for Successful Web Redesigns
Chas Grundy, Director of Interactive Marketing for AgencyND – a marketing agency within the University of Notre Dame, will explain how his team manages website redesigns for different departments and offices as well as for the university homepage. He will share best practices and lessons learned as well as his own recipe for sucessful web redesigns and happy stakeholders.

Find out more about this series at www.higheredexperts.com/redesignbootcamp.

If you register for Web Redesign Boot Camp by February 2nd, 2010 (the registration deadline is February 8, 2010), you’ll get free access to Web Redesign Academy, a collection of 4 other recorded webinars about the topic, until May 31st, 2010.

The Web Redesign Academy suite includes the following webinars:

How to make the case and prepare your next redesign
(presented on February 20, 2008)
Seth Meranda, Assistant Director for Interactive Media at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will show you how to build your case with web stats, surveys and research for your next redesign. After this webinar, you will be better prepared to start to redesign, sell the project to your main stakeholders or even get the budget you need.

How to survive a website redesign
(presented on February 21, 2008)
Nancy Prater, Ball State University Web Coordinator will help you make sure your survive your next website redesign by sharing the best tips and tricks she acquired during the 18-month process preceding the launch of the new bsu.edu in late October 2007.

Website Redesign & CMS Implementation: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(presented on April 22, 2009)
Tonya Price, Director, Marketing and Web Operations at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will share what went bad in WPI redesign coupled with a CMS implementation and how her team managed to overcome these challenges. She will also present her recipe to prepare, manage and survive any big website redesign project that will come your way.

Web Redesign on a dime in 10 steps
(presented on April 23, 2009)
Nick DeNardis, Associate Director of Web Communications at Wayne State University and Founder of the video blog EDU Checkup, will explain how his team managed to complete 25 successful website redesigns for different departments and offices. He will share best practices and lessons learned as well as his 10 steps plan to redesign a small website on a dime.

So, if you want to get 7 webinars for the price of 3, make sure you register for Web Redesign Boot Camp before February 2nd, 2010.

As I mentioned at the top of this blog post, this is a limited offer only available to a limited number of registered institutions.

And, that’s just for January, February, March and April 2010.

I’ve tried to put a program that will help you do your job even better at a time where you are asked to do a lot more with a lot less (time, money, staff…)

As usual, places are limited, so it’s always wise to register ahead of time if you want to secure a spot for your team. You can register by visiting each of the dedicated web addresses of the series. And, if you have any questions, feel free to email karine@higheredexperts.com – always happy to help.

Start The (Word)Presses: How to create the online version of your print magazine or newsletter with WordPress
January 21st, 2010 – 1PM-2PM ET
Register by January 11, 2010 January 19., 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/startwordpresses

Website Redesign Boot Camp: what you need to know before jumping into a redesign project
February 16, 17 & 18, 2010 – 1PM-2PM ET
Register by February 8, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/redesignbootcamp

Analytics 360: How to track and measure (and show to your boss) the ROI of your marketing initiatives
March 10 & 11, 2010 1PM-2PM ET and an introductory session on-demand
Register by March 1st, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/analytics360

Open Source CMS Fair: Why Drupal, WordPress/MU or DotCMS could be your next Web Content Management System
April 13, 14 and 15, 2010 – 1PM-2PM ET
Register by April 5, 2010 at www.higheredexperts.com/cmsfair

Have you seen Bates College’s new homepage?

You should check it out. It is really different and innovative.

Bates College

Not because it uses fancy graphics or animations, but because Jay Collier and his team at Bates College have decided to make this redesigned homepage more than just a collection of the usual navigation scheme, useful links and beautiful campus photos.

So, what makes it so different?

Among other things:

• The way stories – real stories about students, faculty and staff told through blog posts, photos and news in a section called Bates Views – are featured on this homepage.
• The navigation scheme
• The dynamic information architecture
• The use of photo galleries including shots with short captions telling the full story


Bates College

Really beautiful and thoughtful work, which is why I asked Jay Collier 3 questions about this project.

1) How long did it take from concept to the implementation of this first phase?

The Home 4 project took 8 months, from kickoff to final launch. It was built upon the listening sessions I convened with students, staff, faculty, alumni, and parents in 2007 and 2008, and a whole domain blueprint was released in September 2008.

Concurrent with this process, I recruited and hired our first new staff member, producer/designer Ethan Dahlin Magoon, who took on the interface design in April. After releasing several prototypes to the campus community, W3Markup did the base theme coding and Ethan expanded it to dozens of templates for the launch.

Integrating an overview of Bates with almost 1,000 categorized and tagged stories made my work developing the information architecture and writing and editing content more challenging. However, doing so was necessary to get across our primary organizing principle: that there is a common approach to learning at Bates which is experienced in countless ways, throughout a Bates lifetime. We are fortunate to have been able bring together content from news releases, the Alumni Magazine, the Viewbook, the monthly newsletter, student and parent handbooks, and other sources all in one place. I think that was a somewhat unusual opportunity.

2) What do you use for the CMS? The overlay pictures?

We have been managing the site in WordPress since the beginning, first as a proof-of-concept with student assistants at WordPress.com, then as a working prototype with WP 2.8 software on an external hosting service, and now hosted on a campus Web server. We’ve had over a dozen professional staff members and student assistants creating and editing content during that time, and now Ethan works concurrently in the system on interface updates.

We use a series of plugins to manage content and presentation. The slideshows are handled with NextGenGallery, with the overlays via Thickbox and jquery. We’re using a number of plugins to enable shortcodes for editors along with WP-Table Reloaded for organization of tabular data originating in DabbleDB. We had over 30,000 views on launch day — about double the load of an average day — all served by WP-SuperCache.

Supporting standard protocols like RSS means our stories — via hundreds of category and tag feeds — are available for almost any interest. By way of example, see how our NetVibes page at Explore Bates surfaces content from both Home 4 and collections curated in Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube. (We feature links to social services in every page footer.) I also integrated Google Maps, Zoomifyer, and Flash PanoToVR into the editorial. We also worked hard on validation and accessibility so that Home 4 will be welcoming to visitors with a variety of interface preferences. Of course, we have much more to do; we released Home 4 when the bulk of editorial work was done — but before all of the interface design and coding was complete. Version 4.1 is already underway.

3) In your presentation post, you’re hinting that you want to follow the iterative redesign philosophy for next phases. How do you plan – concretely – to do this?

Just as the master plan for an historical village envisions how people will relate and move through their environment as changes are made over a long period of time, so, too, can principles of an online experience define how we make future decisions that will support the effortless movement of our constituents through the online ecosystem.

In my domain blueprint, I recommended that online relationships with the College grow deeper along smooth pathways across systems and services, rather than leaping over walled gardens. Home 4 demonstrates both a point of entry as well as moving our constituents toward deeper engagement with the College in their areas of interest.

As to getting it done, the next phase in the blueprint is The Hub, where offices and departments share their official information about people, ideas, and events. I use the MIT discovery framework and ActivCollab to manage projects, and most of the planning documents, including user scenarios and feature requests (detail) are complete. We already collaborate with the people who manage subsites in our legacy content management system, and we know their hopes and challenges. Supporting the second-impressions they manage is the next logical step.

The future online ecosystem is not monolithic, but, more and more, will be made up of many interoperable services, on-campus and off. As long as we support basic principles of content exchange, we can integrate the online experience to support multiple pathways of deepening engagement.

After being away from this blog from some time – geez, almost 2 weeks, that’s what work can do to you sometimes – I’m back with a new edition of my “Catch-up Date with Karine” series.

Unless, you were leaving on an unconnected deserted island last week, you’ve probably heard about all the great things happening at the HighEdWeb conference in Springfield, MO last week.

Whether you could attend or not the conference, you should check out the following links pointing to the presentation slides made available by the HighEdWeb organizers:

Marketing, PR, etc.

• E-Cards: Using a Thoughful Tool to Communicate with Current and Future Students (PPT file) by Thomas Marrone (Southeast Missouri State University)
• A Day in the (Online) Life of a Humble News Release (PPT file) by Lori Packer (University of Rochester)
• Get a Clue: Shift Happens (PPT file) by Gordy Pace (The University of Montana)
• Feeding the Hand that Feeds You: Supporting Enrollment Efforts (PPT file) by Rob Liesland (Xavier University)
• Authenticity 101: Redefining College Marketing (PDF file) by Jeff Kalay (Target X)

Cool Web Thingies

• Web Accessibility: How Higher Education is Responding to the Need (PPT file) by Terry Thompson (University of Washington)
• Creating a College Web Style Guide: Principles, Processes, and Prototypes (ZIP file) by Jesse Racine (McHenry County College)
• Colors on the Web: Few Things, Great Results (Website) by Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel (University Anhembi Morumbi)
• The Accessible Video Interface (ZIP file) by Gabriel McGovern (Portland Community College)
• Card Sorting: Research That Every Web Developer Should Use (PPT file) by Douglas Tschopp (Augustana College)
• Search Engine Optimization 2008: Beyond META Tags (PPT file) by Brian Smith (University at Albany)
• New Initiatives in Web Standards Education (PDF file) by Chris Mills (Opera Software ASA)
• Hello, Is Anyone Out There? Using Web Analytics to Understand Your Audience by Kyle James (Wofford College)
• View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: #heweb08 heweb08)

Projects (CMS, Redesign, etc.)

• Blogger + Jott = Crisis Communications (PPT file) by Paula Ganyard (University of Wisconsin – Green Bay)
• It Isn’t About the Feature Set: Selecting a Web Content Management System that Works for You (ZIP file) by Anthony Dunn (CSU, Chico)
• Our Pilot Adventure with Luminis IV Leading the Way (PPT file) by Sripriya Giridharan (Seton Hall University)
• Using Our Web CMS to Produce Academic Catalogs (PPT file) by Anne Macdonald (Suffolk University)
• Web Services for Web Services (PPT file) by Kevin Bischof (Xavier University)
• Designing a New User-Centric College Public Website: Lessons Learned (PPT file) by George Sackett (St. Louis Community College)
• Bedework Calendar Implementation Details (PDF file) by Cornelia Ann Bailey (University of Chicago)
• University-Wide Web CMS Implementation – Failure, Then Success (QuickTime Movie file) by James Buratti (Texas State University)
• Academic Alert System (PPT file) by Carla Bates (Missouri University of Science and Technology)
• Bold Fusion: Blending Our Marketing & IT Teams (PDF file) by Lee Staton (Indiana University Southeast)
• Migra(tio)n Headaches? (ZIP file) by Keith Slayden (Ithaca College)
• Wiki + Shared Drive + DocMgmt = Our Intranet (PDF file) by May Chang (University of Maryland)
• Getting Started with WordPress (Website) by Stephanie Leary (Texas A&M University Writing Center)
• A (pod) cast of hundreds (PPT file) by Steve Hodges (IUPUI)
• Webcasting (PPT file) by Joel Doepker (Ozarks Technical Community College)
• CRM Patterns, Puzzles & Prose: Bridging the gap for internal audiences (PPT file) by Paul Redfern (Gettysburg College)
• Identity Management: How and Why (PPT file) by Kirk M. Anne (SUNY Geneseo)
• CMS Success at Princeton University (ZIP file) by John Wagner (Princeton University)
• Vlogging Student Life Events (not as dirty as it sounds) (ZIP file) by Todd Sanders (UW-Green Bay)

Techies’ Corner

• Higher Ed on Rails (ZIP file) by Sven Aas (Mount Holyoke College)
• Cross-Site Scripting: What is it, and how can you protect your site from becoming a victim? (PPT file) by Paul Gilzow (University of Missouri)
• Why Microformats? (ZIP file) by Daniel M. Frommelt (University of Wisconsin – Platteville)
• Avoiding the JavaScript:void(‘’): Building Web Apps That Work Anywhere and Everywhere (PPT file) by Jason Pitoniak (Rochester Institute of Technology)
• Adding Interactive Content to Your Website Using JQuery (ZIP file) by Jaclyn Whitehorn (The University of Alabama)
• HTTP 201 – Or, What Happens When Your User-Agent Isn’t A Browser? (ZIP file) by Jason Woodward (Cornell University)
• Agile Web Development (PPT file) by C. Daniel Chase (University of Colorado)
• Test-driven Development for Web Applications (ZIP file) by Brett Bieber (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
• Driving a Hybrid: The Basics of Adobe AIR (ZIP file) by Christina Dulude (Duke University)

There was also some live blogging (and twittering) going on at the conference. Karlyn Morissette compiled most of the posts on the eduguru blog.

Note from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you’ve attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion.

Setting expectations are crucial for a successful CMS implementation.

If you have never gone through a CMS implementation, find someone who has and talk to them about how to set expectations correctly among your community. Then, set up a communication plan so everyone knows what the status of the project is at all times. Make sure there are periodic opportunities to tell everyone where the implementation and subsequent conversion stands. Finally, have a well thought out training plan designed to provide content providers with the information they need to update their content.

Don’t try to be fancy, just give them the tools they need so the system is a productivity tool, not an impediment to them getting their work completed.

Note from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you’ve attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion.

Universities struggle to find all the right solutions for their wide audience base. Everything has to be branded and easy for everyone to use. Products are required to meet accessibility standards that are often not considered by commercial software vendors. There are a multitude of software solutions available and many of have no upfront cost.

Open Source Solutions are designed with a different motive than conventional software. They are designed to accomplish a task or to fulfill a need, not to turn a profit. This encourages a sense of community and from this community comes free support, often directly from the developers. These products are often designed to be custom tailored to fit your specific needs, anything from custom themes and templates to custom data fields.

A couple of months ago, Elliot Lopez, Project Manager for University Communications at the University of California, Davis created a survey about CMS (as in Content Management System) in higher education.

Elliot just emailed me to let me know that the results including answers from 129 institutions have just been published on his team blog:

Initial highlights include:

• Over 60% of respondents are in institutions currently using a Web CMS
• Institutions were more likely to employ open source or custom-developed solutions over proprietary/commercial systems
• Most instances of Web CMS systems are small, centralized deployments of under 40 sites and 40 or fewer total users
• Individual units or departments are generally not billed for use of the Web CMS
• Over 75% of Web CMS adopters provide formal training to users
• Most Web CMS adopters would choose the same system if they had to do so again

Overall, there were no clear-cut “market leaders” in the broad field of Web CMS solutions identified by the higher ed institutions that responded to the survey. However, Plone and Drupal – both open source solutions – are in relatively heavy use.

You can get the survey report for free as web pages with nice charts.

I’m sure CMS vendors will be checking out these results, so make sure you do too.