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.