In an era where digital content continues to grow at an exponential rate, organizations of all styles and sizes struggle to manage and create content. Much like large firms, Net sites play a important role within the selling and communications methods of upper education institutions. As school and university Internet sites grow a lot of complex, it is crucial to own a web site that is properly managed, simple to navigate, and powered by flexible, mature content management technology.
With the correct Content Management System (CMS), universities will help optimize communication with students and faculties, enhance student recruitment and retention, and maintain relationships with alumni. Content management technology is already at the core of many higher education Web infrastructures - one in all the foremost rapidly adopted technologies, in fact. A CMS will offer a number of benefits by facilitating the efficient creation and management of Web content (news and events, course catalogs, college profiles, and more) throughout the entire content lifecycle. This allows content to be published with greater speed and ease - making employees more productive, operations a lot of economical, and content more relevant and up-to-date.
CMS: Addressing Net Challenges
Whereas the content itself might be different, the content wants of an educational institution are not terribly far faraway from that of a corporation. A smart university CMS must provide:
o The ability to maintain consistent branding across campus-wide sites.
o The ability to decentralize content management to enable individual departments and offices to manage content.
o The power to empower non-technical users (i.e. directors, college, and employees) to simply create and publish content through an intuitive interface.
o The flexibility to deliver timely, targeted, up-to-date data to varied audiences like prospective and enrolled students, alumni, college, staff, corporate partners, and also the media.
o The ability to easily integrate with external applications including Course Management, Client Relationship Management, Enterprise Resource Coming up with systems, and portals.
Typical challenges with university content management
o 'Dreamweaver' culture
o A hodge-podge of web sites
o Varied branding
o Varied accessibility levels and content
o Finding the correct CMS/CMS vendor to deliver the proper solution
A recent survey conducted by the University of California, Davis, brought forward some interesting facts. Highlights embody:
o 60% of the institutional respondents are already employing a CMS.
o Open supply, custom developed and hosted solutions are more widespread than ancient put in products.
o There's no clear leader in terms of which CMS product campuses are using.
Does the installed CMS do the job?
There are many reasons why a ancient CMS might not be the best match for institutional requirements. Contemplate:
o Budget
An installed CMS is typically very expensive as a result of you have individual costs for the software, implementation and support. With the latter 2 usually costing two to 3 times the initial software investment, academic institutions seldom, if ever, have the budgets to afford them.
o Implementation
Implementation of CMS architecture across campuses is usually haphazard, and the amount of customization is either terribly low or nonexistent. Given the complexity of a ancient CMS, it's nearly impossible for institutions to use a CMS on more than a quarter of their Web sites.
o Support and Training
Most academic institutions have very few staff (if any) supporting the CMS. There's additionally a giant variety and big variety of non-technical users, reluctant to alter or any formal training. Not many CMS vendors provide technical coaching to users - especially thus for users who would possibly don't have any technical knowledge whatsoever.
These factors invariably place traditional CMS at the bottom of the requirements list at university campuses.
The case for a hosted CMS
In the academic surroundings, a CMS must not solely be price-effective, it should also be quick and painless to implement, manage, support, and run. It should be kept in mind that universities also have a bigger diversity of users connecting with the Internet web site - students (current and prospective), college, workers, parents, the community at massive, alumni, and therefore on.
With a hosted CMS, infrastructure burdens are minimized. There's no hardware to buy, or software to install; you merely access the appliance through a Internet browser. Hosted solutions additionally give a set of standard modules and style templates, customizable per organizational needs. Non-technical users will appreciate the convenience of this; they'll concentrate on the content and its presentation instead of the underlying technology.
Universities have a gamut of user types, and obtaining them concerned early in the choice-creating method is a vital step in choosing a CMS. Given that hosted solutions make it much easier for users to actually adopt the system, success rates are predictably higher. Most CMS successes can additionally be attributed to a 'CMS champion' - someone very motivated about using the technology, and telling everybody else how straightforward it actually is to use. Finding this 'champion' will be easier if the CMS is truly quick and straightforward to learn.
A giant part of traditional CMS complexity is because of reality that these systems are designed for massive transaction processing. With a hosted answer, the establishment will have the option of using solely the CMS components it truly needs.
Hosted CMS can additionally be up and running much quicker, with lower coaching requirements. The seller has dedicated employees deployed to handle technical problems, and therefore the establishment will not have to require on the burden of finding or employing support personnel.
Conclusion
It is vital to perceive the role of content management in higher education to help outline and prioritize necessities according to system-wide objectives. From schools to high schools and universities the proper CMS can have a strong impact by enabling users in the least levels.
But, it is equally necessary to decide on a CMS with the best combination of flexibility, control, and ease-of-use for the successful operations of institutional Internet sites. Together, a CMS and a sound content management strategy can mix to address the complicated, everyday Web challenges of upper education.
Author Resource:
Howard has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Content Management System : CMS, you can also check out his latest website about:
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