Website Content Management
School Advisor, 2005 Issue No. 1
Websites have become the primary means for schools to communicate with their key constituencies: students, parents, staff, and the community. As districts grow increasingly reliant on this communications channel, the stakes around providing up-to-date content that is presented in a pleasing and coherent manner have never been higher. Web content management tools are used by many districts to facilitate the creation and management of fresh, relevant web content.
What Is a Content Management System?
The web is not about documents or flat-file HTML pages. Instead, a forward-looking website is a collection of content components that can be assembled to meet the needs of users. Web Content Management Systems (CMSs) empower a vastly larger population to contribute content to a school’s website. The fundamental contrast between web page creation tools like Dreamweaver or FrontPage and CMS-created content is the separation of content from the presentation of the content.
A good CMS brings many advantages to content creation:
Ease of Use — A CMS allows content to be written and edited within a web browser, similar to filling out a web form. Once a user logs in, areas in which they have authoring rights are easily edited, previewed, and published to the website. Content can also be inserted using cut and paste. Some CMS solutions even allow users to publish directly from Microsoft Word.
Content Scheduling — Automating the archiving and delayed publishing of content is as easy as specifying publishing date limits. Content expiration settings define the point in time when content is no longer presented.
Content Reuse — Pages can be shared so that the same content can appear in multiple places on the website. Edits update content wherever it appears.
Additionally, a good CMS provides advanced management tools that enhance the presentation the content:
Dynamic Navigation — CMS solutions build navigation automatically. This means that as pages are added and removed from the website, navigational menus are updated automatically. The resulting navigation will be consistent on each page of the website. Most CMS solutions include banner, menu, and site navigation bar on every page and breadcrumb navigation as appropriate. Site maps are also dynamically created and maintained.
Templates Provide Centralized Visual Control — Featuring a consistent design and navigation scheme, templates facilitate adherence to publishing standards and branding without diminishing the flexibility of the publishing environment.
Approval Hierarchy — CMS roles are used to identify who can publish or create content for the website. Content managers (such as a teachers or administrators) are assigned to an author, editor, or dual author/editor role. Authors can create or edit content for the website, and editors approve and post content to the website.
Content Formats — Formats such as .pdf, Microsoft Office documents, graphics, videos, digital photos, and other web-friendly content are easily published in most CMS systems.
Lastly, a good CMS meets several information technology management goals:
Authentication and Security — Users can be given rights to view and/or edit content for any number of websites or website sections. This makes it easy to deploy content within the same website. In addition, content resources such as images, media files, or other documents can be restricted based on a user’s specific authoring responsibilities.
Internet/Intranet/Extranet — Because a CMS provides a web development framework, many CMS tools can support all of a district’s web endeavors (multiple Internet sites, intranets, and extranets).
Research indicates that there are more than 2,500 different commercial, open source, and “homegrown” content management solutions available. Plante & Moran has implemented several of these solutions. Most recently, we redeveloped websites for L’Anse Creuse Public Schools and Birmingham Public Schools using Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS).
The following is a brief case study of the L’Anse Creuse Public Schools effort:
L’Anse Creuse Public Schools
L’Anse Creuse Public Schools (LCPS) had an existing web presence which was developed internally; however, their requirements had grown far beyond the capacity of that website. They looked to Plante & Moran for a strategy and a solution.
LCPS’s main objective was simple: to retain control of all content from the district level, yet give all responsible staff the ability to easily create and publish content to the website. This content needed to be presented in an aesthetically pleasing design. Early on in the strategy, LCPS decided to upgrade their entire identity, starting with the logo. Designers at P&M helped LCPS establish a completely new look and shifted gears quickly to the web interface.
The strategy to de-centralizing all content production was aggressive and needed to be phased in over time. Our suggestion for a scalable yet cost-effective solution was MCMS. Once the strategy and proposal for work were approved, we had less than one month to develop the entire solution.
The Technical Details
MCMS is a framework that allows developers to quickly build fully functional and easy-to-maintain websites. In its simplest form, an MCMS website is built by developing web page templates that are used by end users to create web pages. This approach requires no HTML or other technical knowledge on behalf of the content contributor. Anyone who can use a website or a word processor can easily contribute content to the website.
The MCMS solution for LCPS was quite simple. A total of four templates were created, two templates to be used for district-wide content and two templates to be used for school-specific content. The school templates were programmed to display the appropriate school branding, such that any web page created by a user shows the correct school logo and colors. Using just four different templates, the entire website was built in one month.
One of the best features about MCMS is that it is completely customizable. For LCPS, Plante & Moran created a custom global home page component to allow the district to easily post a global message across all district websites. LCPS uses this custom feature to post messages about important board meetings or school closings. The message is added or updated in one place — on the district home page — and is automatically displayed on all school home pages.
Editing Content
With MCMS, editing and publishing content is easy. In Edit Mode, web page content is displayed in open text fields. Text can be easily updated, previewed, and published with just a few clicks of the mouse. Common formatting options found in Word Processors such as font settings, colors, and spelling check are available.
MCMS includes all of the functionality required to distribute website authoring responsibilities across an organization. This includes authentication components, workflow and approval mechanisms, and content versioning. Website authors are assigned to specific areas of the website and are only given access to the resources they need to do manage their content area. For LCPS, this means that each school can maintain their own website and the workflow settings can be tailored to meet their needs.
Intranet
Today, P&M is using MCMS to help redevelop the L’Anse Creuse Public Schools intranet. All the qualities of relevance and consistency which made the Internet site an award winner will be brought to the district’s intranet.
Do You Need Web Content Management?
If your website would benefit from frequent updates, a more consistent visual presentation, or from empowering more individuals to contribute content, a Content Management System is a fantastic solution.
Birmingham Public Schools’ MCMS-based site (www.birmingham.k12.mi.us) went live in August 2004, with a minimum training effort. (Technology Director, Lisa Martinico, states flatly, “Give me 30 minutes and I can train anybody on MCMS.”) Within the first month, with only 30 of 600 teachers on board, the website numbered of 700 pages. Best of all, those key constituencies of students, parents and staff have greeted the new site with near universal acceptance.
