IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

Content ManagementThe develop in-house case

Gareth McAleeseWeb and New Media Manager

Public AffairsUniversity of Ulster

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

CMS – Develop In-house

• The UU Environment• Problem to be Solved• Our approach• Where we are at• Where we are going

(I’ll not duplicate the rationale from what Ricky said – it’s all similar)

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

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

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

The Problem• Information owner does not update page• The site’s a mess!• Our site is a laughing stock• Doesn’t look corporate or consistent• Can’t be good for business• Can’t 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

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

UU ProblemsWe 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 don’t have enough blokes to do the job!

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

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…

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

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

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

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

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

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 don’t leave!• Involve users early on – they are the ones

that will have to use the system• Make sure you thoroughly test

IWMW 2003 - Canterbury

Questions

Please feel free to ask Ricky ;-)