Echo CI is live!

We're happy to report that our first Web sites in Phase 1a of our migration went live on Friday, December 17. The Anthropology and Sociology are available to their owners for editing in Echo CI. It's taken us longer to get here than we expected because of some significant implementation speedbumps which have now been resolved.

The remaining Phase 1a sites are expected to go live in early January 2011. Migration work has already begun on Phase 1b sites, which along with the bulk of the University's web sites, will be migrated to Echo CI during the Spring 2011 semester.

We have a lot of content to migrate, and it's going to take some time to complete. According to our current experience, it will take about 1 hour or less (2 hours or more for larger sites) per unique site to migrate using the available tools and to perform the necessary quality assurance, and we estimate we have 200+ unique sites to migrate. With further migration experience we hope to reduce the time required.

Thanks to everyone for their continued patience and participation in this project, and happy holidays from the Echo CI team!

Echo CI is coming...

After much deliberation, we've chosen a name for our new web content management (WCM) service: Echo CI.

But what does it mean? We have several explanations for why we chose this name for our new system, ranging from serious to playful. You can decide which one makes the most sense (or which one you enjoy!)

1. The way Dolphins communicate: The name is a playful reference to our University mascot, the dolphin. Dolphins must communicate over short and long distances in an organized way. One way they accomplish this is through echolocation. By broadcasting sounds and listening to the results, dolphins use echolocation as a tool to navigate and understand the world that surrounds them. In a similar way, CI "Dolphins" need to communicate with each other and the world at large in an efficient and organized way.  Echo CI is a tool that enables our University community deliver its messages on the Web in a quick and meaningful way. As the University continues to grow, Echo CI will help our current and future Dolphins to navigate oceans of information by helping the University to deliver information in a consistent and flexible way.

2. Reflection: An echo is a reflection of the original information, a representation of source material. In the same way, Echo CI is a tool to make it easier to gather and reflect existing information about the University using the Web as a media. Echo CI does not create content on its own; rather, it reflects the information that members of the University put into it.

3. Defense of our future: one of our team members said the name reminded him of a SEGA video game called “Ecco the Dolphin, Defender of the Future”. Likewise, Echo CI is a tool to help to ensure our future success as a University. It should be no surprise that CI’s future depends on how effectively we communicate via the Web. In a recent survey, over 83% of current and prospective students said that the University web site is their primary means of obtaining information about the University. Echo CI is a tool to manage and sustain the explosive growth of content and information delivery methods; it helps us ensure that we are ready for what the future holds.

Echo CI will mean different things to different people, and that’s OK; in all cases, we are committed to creating a positive experience for all who will use Echo CI day-to-day, including web content writers, designers, developers, and all the users of the content that it helps our campus community to create.

Migration update

Due to the resolution of technical issues regarding our new server infrastructure, as well as the complexities of the content migration, a soft launch of the new web sites has been moved to next week. We anticipate that by Friday, October 29, all of the Phase 1 sites will be live in our new system. Once the sites are live, content editors and owners of Phase 1 sites will need to complete training in the new system before their access to edit their sites will be enabled.

The new production web servers are scheduled to go live this afternoon, starting approximately 4:00pm. We were not able to complete the migration to the new servers as planned on Friday, October 15 during our maintenance window because of technical issues with the server configuration which could not be resolved. However, in the meanwhile extensive testing has been completed to ensure these issues have been resolved, and we anticipate a smooth, glitch-free and instantaneous migration today.

WCM migration progress report; launch date change

Since the end of July, the WCM migration team has been actively working to prepare for the launch of the new web content management system.

Here's what we've accomplished so far:

• Creation of a template guide to describe the template functionality we expect in the new system. 
• Modification of our page template code (HTML, CSS, etc) to prepare for our migration
• Configuration and testing of a new set of servers which will host our production web sites (and will replace our existing production web servers for www.csuci.edu) 
• Development of new templates and template system in the new WCM in coordination with OmniUpdate
• Compiled a content ownership inventory of web site owners and editors to facilitate migration into the new system

As with any large, complex system implementation, we've run into a few snags along the way. We want to ensure that the new system launches as smoothly as possible; therefore the go-live date for the Phase 1 sites has been rescheduled for Tuesday, October 19. 

Thanks to all our project participants for their patience and cooperation. We are excited to have this new system available soon! 

Content inventory

One of the first steps in our migration process is to evaluate the content that we have and generate a kind of "content inventory". The inventory is meant to provide answers several questions:

1. What is the content, and where is it (what server, where is it physically located?)
   
   What's most important at this point in the project is to have an accurate list of existing web sites.
   
   We start by generating a list of folders on each of the servers which host our web content. This is the most definite way to determine what type of content we are serving on the Web. In our case, we use a fairly flat information architecture: most top-level folders in our site represent a single sub-site. So, the list of top-level folders makes a pretty accurate list of existing web sites. There are some exceptions to this though, so sometimes we have to dig a little deeper to generate the list.
   
   
   
2. Who does the content belong to? Who is the owner, and who are the editors?
   
   A content owner is the manager or designee that is, in the end, responsible for the accuracy and timeliness of the content on their web site. A content editor is the person tasked by the content owner with performing web site updates. Both content owners' and content editors' responsibilities derive from the chain-of-command: content owners are typically managers designated by a vice president or other executive, and content editors are designated by content owners. In some cases, the same person is both the content owner and content editor.
   
   Each site in our list is assigned one content owner and one content editor.
   
   
   
3. Does the page exist in our web content management system? If so, will we migrate it?
   
   Our content inventory encompasses web sites that exist both inside Collage and outside of it. In some cases, programs and organizations don't use Collage for publishing their web sites. For the purposes of migration, if it exists in Collage, we'll also need to determine if we'll migrate it. This depends on the content owner's approval, as well as the accuracy and timeliness of the current content.
   
    
4. Is the web site "special" in some way? Does this web site use special WCM components, or represents an edge case use of the University template? If not, which template should it use?
   
   If a web site is using Collage components, or is using a special (custom) template, we can identify it here and use the information to prioritize the migration phase. If the web site is not unusual and uses a standard University template, we also mark the content with a template number; this number maps to the template descriptions we will provide to OmniUpdate for creation of the new site templates.
   
   
   
5. When will the site be migrated into the new system?
   
   As mentioned before, there's too much content to safely migrate all-at-once. So, based on the principles of prioritization previously defined, we will assign each web site to one of several migration phases.

The inventory also has rooms for notes and other information to help describe content and issues concerning its migration.

Project update; Phase 5 participants; branding

We're on our way with Phase 5 of our project: implementation and migration. Over the past two weeks we've had several meetings with OmniUpdate to work on scheduling and technical details for this phase.

There are lots of issues to consider:

• When can we provide all the information OmniUpdate needs to begin their work?
• When can OmniUpdate schedule work to begin (and complete)?
• What sites and content will we migrate, and who do these sites & content belong to? 
• How will we stage our migration? Which sites will be migrated first, and how will priority be determined? 
• When will we go "live" with the new system?
• What will our new system be called?  

 To help answer these kinds of questions, the campus WCM migration team has scheduled regular weekly meetings to discuss these kinds of questions. The last four questions are especially important, so they bear more detailed investigation.

What sites will we migrated, and who do they belong to? We have a good deal of content. Our current statistics show that in Collage we have:

• 230 unique web site design
• 5,373 contribution documents (i.e., web pages in XML format)
• 4,401 HTML documents (i.e., web pages in HTML format)

To determine who these sites belong to, Web Services staff has created a "Content Inventory" to document where the content is located, as well as the names of the content owners and editors.

How will we stage our migration? We need to complete the migration in stages because we have a lot of sites with a lot of content, and we can't move everything at once.

While the details for which sites will be migrated has yet to be determined, the principles used to prioritize are as follows:

1. Web sites that are in production and are currently being maintained in Collage have higher priority
2. Content which receives the most visits has higher priority
3. Content which is most actively updated has higher priority
4. Low hanging fruit (simple, easy, low risk, high benefit) has higher priority
5. Simple web content (static images/text) have higher priority
6. Web sites using standard CI templates have higher priority
7. Web sites whose owners or editors are eager to participate in migration have higher priority
8. Web sites with less content have higher priority 
9. Dynamic or complex web content (applications, audio/video, etc) have lower priority
10. Web sites that have not yet gone into production have lower priority

In keeping with principle #6, we're looking for organizations that wish to participate in the first stage of our roll out. If your organization is interested in participating as an early adopter of this new web content platform, please contact me at peter.mosinskis@csuci.edu. Participants in the first stage must be current Collage users and have time to actively participate in the migration process, including review of existing content, post-migration content review, bug reporting, and system training.

When will we "go-live" with our new system? We have tentatively scheduled the first site(s) in the new system to "go live" on October 1, 2010. This date is subject to change based on the availability of campus and vendor resources. As mentioned, the roll out will proceed in stages, with additional sites going live throughout the Fall semester. We hope to complete migration of the remaining sites during the Spring 2011 semester.

What will our new system be called? We would like to extend the University brand to our implementation of OmniUpdate's OU Campus, in order to create a more consistent user experience and improve familiarity with this important service. We're looking for naming ideas! If you have an idea for a new name for this service, email me at peter.mosinskis@csuci.edu.

Official recommendation - OmniUpdate!

After review of participants’ testing results and completion of an extensive evaluation for each of the three vendor finalists, I'm pleased to announce that OmniUpdate’s OU Campus web content management system has been determined to be the best fit for CSU Channel Islands and has been recommended for purchase to the WCM Core Team and IT management. Learn more about OU Campus.

Once the contract and purchase are finalized, the WCM Core Team will reconvene to discuss the timeline and action items for the implementation phase of the project, which will include system configuration, migration of existing web content, and training for web content editors.

Now for a few thank-yous:

• Thanks to all three vendor finalists for their responsiveness and support throughout our long and detailed evaluation and selection process.
• Thanks to Winston Churchill-Joell, Cagdas Cubukcu, Cathey Hurtt, Nathan Gerber, Jessica Dennis, Justin Gatewood, Jason Friesen, and Lee Brunjes for sharing their experience with web content management at their respective institutions.
• Thanks to members of the WCM advisory and testing teams for their valuable feedback and participation in the hands-on testing of three product finalists.
• Thanks to the members of the WCM core team for their guidance throughout the project process.
• And finally, very special thanks to Kevin Craig, Ryan Garcia, and Daniel Martinez for their unwavering commitment and care in helping the University select the best solution.

Down to the wire

The Web Services team has been working feverishly to complete the hands-on testing of the WCM offerings of three vendor finalists.

A lot of functionality is being tested: multiple browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari); multiple platforms (Windows, Mac); end-user features (such as the WYSIWYG editor) and administrative features (such as batch processing of files & folders, templating and content-reuse). It's important to note that each system has its pros and cons (from both end-user and administrative perspectives), and these must be balanced to select the best solution for our University web content environment.

Some of the challenges at this phase include:

• Ensuring that we test enough features in the right way. We approached this by spending a lot of time testing end-user features first, and then moving on to administrative/back-end portions of each product. This way we could ensure a positive experience for the end-users.
• Learning enough about how each system works. For example, some of the systems make extensive use of XML + XSL in their templating system, so knowing enough to be comfortable and to understand code examples in these languages is critical to completing testing successfully. In the case of these products, learning about & understanding the templating system in each product probably has taken the most time.

The good thing is that we have fully-functional versions of each product. The bad news is, as always, there is just not enough time to learn + test everything!
  
Within the next week, the team will meet with IT leadership to decide which vendor and system will be selected. Thanks to everyone so far for their participation & feedback throughout the process. 

Hands-on testing update

It's been a busy month with the WCM evaluation!

Over the last few weeks, three products have been selected for hands-on testing of the product:

• Hannon Hill Cascade Server
• OmniUpdate OU Campus
• TerminalFour Site Manager

Each of the selected vendors has set up full-featured demo instances of their product and provided access to the Web Services team for hands-on testing.

A select group of campus participants representing key stakeholders for the web content management system were invited to participate in in-person training sessions, as well as to participate in self-paced, hands-on testing of each product.

Web Coordinator Daniel Martinez has hosted in-person training sessions for two of the products; training for the third is scheduled next week.

If you are interested in participating in the training sessions or the hands-on testing, please contact Daniel at daniel.martinez@csuci.edu or call 805-437-3932.

In the meanwhile, the selected vendors were asked to provide multiple client contacts at institutions with similiar needs and implementations. WCM team members will be conducting interviews with these clients to obtain additional perspective on the vendors and products.

We hope to wrap up our administrative and end-user testing, as well as our client interviews, by the end of the month. As they say, it's crunch time!

Hands-on product testing

Now that the vendor demos are complete, the University will invite selected vendors to participate in our hands-on testing process (Phase 3). As the implementation of a new web content management (WCM) system will impact over 100 web content editors, it's critical for the University to get hands-on experience with each product before it makes its final selection.

During this phase, vendors will assist the University in configuring a fully-functional version of the product for testing purposes. Further, vendors will be expected to provide sufficient email and phone-based support to troubleshoot issues encountered during the configuration and testing process.

In the meanwhile, the University will invite selected members of its community to participate in hands-on portion. These campus participants will include web content editors, web designers, and current WCM system administrators representing key stakeholders at the University.

Campus participants in Phase 3 will be invited to attend a training session for each vendor's product, and will be given access to the product and instructions to complete a testing process. Testing steps and processes will vary depending on each participants existing web content management role. Test results will be documented using a standard form.


Results from the testing process will be compiled by the Core project team and reviewed, in consultation with testing participants as necessary.

Vendor demo wrap-up

We completed our 4 vendor demos yesterday. Two 2-hour demos per day was a somewhat grueling schedule for the participants, but we are happy to get them done quickly.

A big "Thank you!" to all the vendors that presented, as well as all those that have participated in our process thus far.

During the next week, we will be reviewing the vendor demonstrations in greater detail, communicating with our demo participants, and determining which vendors will be invited to participate in the next phase (hands-on testing).

We anticipate selection and feedback for vendors to be available during the week of April 22.  In the meanwhile, we may be in contact with vendors to answer technical questions about their products. 

RFP responses & vendor demos

We're happy to announce that we received responses to our RFP for web content management systems from the following vendors:

• HannonHill
• OmniUpdate
• Percussion
• TerminalFour

The RFPs have been distributed to the WCM Core Team, and are under review.

Vendor demonstrations are scheduled for next week, and are open to the campus community. Because space is limited, we request that campus community members RSVP to attend any of the demonstration sessions.

Demonstrations are scheduled as follows:

• Hannon Hill - Tuesday, March 9, 12:30pm - 2:30pm PST
• TerminalFour - Tuesday, March 9, 3:00pm - 5:00pm PST
• Percussion - Thursday, March 11, 12pm – 2pm PST
• OmniUpdate - Thursday, March 11, 2:30pm – 4:30pm PST

Click here to RSVP for the WCM vendor demonstrations

Location information will be provided to those that RSVP.

RSVP for upcoming vendor demos

We are scheduling vendor demos for the following times:

• Tuesday, March 9, 12:30pm - 2:30pm
• Tuesday, March 9, 3:00pm - 5:00pm
• Thursday, March 11, 10:00am – 12:00pm
• Thursday, March 11, 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Demos are open to all members of the CI community, but space is limited, so you must RSVP to attend. Location information will be provided via email to those that RSVP.

CLICK HERE to RSVP for the vendor demos now!

Vendor demo update

The next phase of the WCM evaluation process will include demonstrations by vendors. The 2-hour demos will help the University key system features. While the demonstrations are largely structured (in order to enable a method for comparison of features across products), each vendor will have an opportunity to showcase the unique strengths of their product.

Each vendor will receive the vendor demonstration agenda and a set of sample files to be used in the demonstration.

Vendors who are participating in the RFP are being contacted to obtain preferences for demo scheduling; however, participation in the demos will be determined by the University based on the RFP evaluation criteria. The demos will be scheduled for the week of March 8-12.

Project status update; RFP

The WCM Core Group met on January 7 to discuss the outcomes of the Phase 1 evaluation. 20 web content management products were evaluated according to the criteria.

There were 76 initial criteria; some criteria were eliminated during the evaluation process.
Each criteria was assigned a “Relative Importance” value (1-5, 5=highest importance) that was reviewed and approved by the Core WCM team.

In order to further narrow the field of candidates, the Core Group decided that comprehensive pricing and service information should be obtained by RFI or RFP prior to proceeding to the vendor demo phase. An RFP was created, and on February 3, 2010, five vendors were invited to respond to the RFP (in no particular order):

• Hannon Hill Corporation
• OmniUpdate
• PaperThin
• Percussion
• TerminalFour

Yesterday an optional virtual conference was held by University IT and Procurement staff for the offerors to answer any questions regarding the RFP. Notes from that conference will be appended to the RFP and distributed via email next week.

The deadline for the RFP response is March 1, 2010. We're looking forward to seeing the vendor proposals.