Content Management 2.0 at the institutional boundary
Matthew Hoskins, Web Content Management Officer at the University of Leeds, led the procurement process for web content management in 2008. Having significant experience in publishing, both online and offline, Matthew shared some of his knowledge at the IMS 2008 conference held at Olympia, London in December 2008.
"In my experience and from observation of the CMS business, institutions tend to implement single system content management solutions that operate from a central point and build large or closely related groups of websites that seem unsuitable for units who are somewhat removed from the centre. In higher education, these may be research centres and specialist groups, who although small are numerous, and have significant external profiles in total.
Through the use of the Jadu Galaxies CMS development system from Jadu we at Leeds intend to provide a packaged service that will allow non-technical staff to administer small to medium scaled websites that will allow them to communicate without the need for specialist staff.
The need to support small and specialised websites is seen as a considerable burden on our institution and we are using this product to enhance an existing web hosting service with a CMS Hosting Service that we will promote as an economic and effective tool for web publishing. We expect the number of sites using this service to be in the hundreds. This should allow the redirection of resources towards more specialist web development."
The new Jadu CMS will provide a level playing field so that departments with low technical skills will have equivalent sites and capabilities to those with high technical skills. The improved systems will hopefully contribute to the elevation of the university's external profile, contributing to the overall strategic objective.
Matthew Hoskins, University of Leeds Web Content Management Project Officer