Wednesday, October 20, 2010

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.

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.