Web Content Management System

Walt Milligan, 11/22/2006

Michigan Tech placed a purchase order today with Percussion Software, Inc., for their Rythmyx Content Management System. Contrary to rumors on the street, the purchase occurred today, not in advance of the second demo.

The first demo did not do an adequate job of showing the flexibility, ease of use, and power of the product for distributed content providers and webmasters. The second demo, on November 14, did so quite well, and feedback from participants in this second demo was universally positive.

Purchase and deployment of a Content Management System was recommended by the New Media Technology Task Force, whose report (dated December 2005) may be found here.

The content management system will provide several benefits that strengthen our web presence and quality. Anticipated benefits include:

  • Version control and audit history data for every campus web page.
  • Control of the content at the item level, allowing re-purposing and sharing of content items on various pages.
  • Workflow to allow electronic approval of content and changes.
  • The ability to set up start and stop dates for pages, removing out-of-date content automatically.
  • Automatic link control. When a content item or page is moved, re-named, or deleted, all associated links in the system are automatically changed (or removed) . If a content item is removed from the system or modified, it is removed or modified automatically on every page that contains it.
  • Very intuitive interfaces for content providers that will allow any faculty member, staff member or student (who has permission) to easily add and update content. The interfaces allow a great deal of flexibility, and most are browser-based.
  • The ability to more easily incorporate consistent branding and look/feel for a more professional campus web presence.

University Marketing and Communications is in the process of posting a position that will serve as the Program Manager for this product roll out. Based on experiences at other educational institutions, it is anticipated that this process will take somewhere on the order of a full year to fully implement across campus, starting after the training and consulting period. It will be implemented sequentially, probably starting in the administration building.

I would like to thank the CMS implementation team, who did a fantastic job of setting the necessary specifications for the product, studied several dozen vendors, down-selected to 4 finalists, and ultimately settled in on the Percussion product. The implementation team consisted of Mary Jane Lowney (Administrative Information Services), Bonnie Gorman (University Marketing and Communications), Shea McGrew (Advancement), and Patty Lins (Educational Technology Services). Scott Bershing (University Marketing and Communications) and Dave Fredrickson (Administrative Information Services) were also valuable members of the team.

I personally guarantee that distributed content providers and webmasters are going to love this product. I can't wait to start using it on the OIT web pages.