The product evaluations for Phase 1 are almost complete. The Core Team will meet again in early January to review and discuss the initial results and to select the vendors & products which will proceed to Phase 2.
In Phase 2, products which meet the Phase 1 criteria will be invited to present a demonstration of their product to the Core and Advisory group members.
A detailed demonstration agenda will be provided to vendors in advance, and CI participants will use a set of critera evaluate the vendor products. Each session will include a question and answer session.
Vendors who participate in Phase 2 will likely provide demonstrations via WebEx or similar technologies, though the Core Group can choose to have them come to campus to present their product demonstration.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Phase I of the WCM Evaluation project is nearing completion.
The survey analysis is complete, and ~75% of the requirements comparison has been completed.
One challenge has been evaluating products that are open source. In many cases, you can't just contact a vendor to have your questions answered. Instead, you have to dig through documentation, demos, and user forums to get the answers. On a positive note, most of the time installing the software yourself (if you have the right server infrastructure available) is pretty trivial, so that has worked out as another easy approach to completing our evaluations.
Once the requirements evaluation for Phase I is completed, the Core group will meet to review the results and select a subset of products to participate in Phase II of the process: structured demos by the vendor for the Core Group and possibly Advisory Group members.
This morning, the results of the Web Content Management (WCM) survey were sent to the Core Group for review. There were 136 total responses from the community.
There weren't many surprises revealed by the survey; it helped to clarify and confirm many existing perceptions. The results will be especially useful in the future, as we now have a benchmark for the level of satisfaction with our current WCM system.
Here are some things we observed in the results:
Many of our web content creators don’t have a lot of prior experience working on web sites. Less than 50% of respondents who are currently using the system had ever worked on a Web site before.
People with less web experience seem to like the WCM more. Collage users who have beginner-level web skills or who had never worked on a web site prior to Collage are 17-39% more satisfied with Collage than people that have prior experience working on web sites.
Our WCM users probably don't have sufficient modern web design skills. While 70% of respondents claim that they have at least a beginner’s understanding of the principles and practices of modern web design, and 80% consider themselves "intermediate" or "advanced" for most Windows + MS Word skills, the results suggest that only 20% likely possess the skills to successfully perform modern Web design tasks.
Overall satisfaction with the system is largely neutral,with the remainder closely split with a slight edge to satisfied users.
Most respondents consider our current WCM easy to use, and like the consistency it creates. Most positive comments about Collage’s strengths were about ease of use and consistency.
Respondents remarked on these weaknesses of our current WCM (in order of importance):
- Editing and publishing speed. Collage is not fast enough.
- Insufficient formatting controls. People want to do more with fonts color, styles, and layout.
- Browser compatibility. Needs to work well and consistently across browsers & platforms.
- Clunky administrative interface. It should be more streamlined and focused on only the tasks a user needs.
- The built-in editing tool. Should provide better/more editing control.
More detailed analysis has been provided to the Core Group for further review.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
We're received 91 replies to date; thank you to those CI employees that have participated in the WCM survey thus far. For those that haven't, the survey will be open through the end of October. We appreciate all feedback; we want to make sure that we're selecting a system that best fits the needs of the University community, and we can only do that if people tell us what they need, what works and what doesn't.
The review of products Phase 1 of the evaluation and selection process will begin soon.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The 2009 WCM Survey was sent out this afternoon to all CI employees via campus email. We look forward to hearing back from the community about the current system and the features that we should focus on in a new system.
Regardless of which system is selected, key policy and procedure issues need to be resolved prior to system implementation. These include answers to questions such as:
- Who will use the WCM?
- Who is required to use the new WCM, i.e., which persons/organizations/Web sites/etc.?
- What alternatives will be provided for those who don't wish to use (or who can't, for some reason) use the new WCM?
- What are the expectations for how the system will be used? What processes will change, and which will stay the same?
- How will support be provided: who will provide it, and at what levels of financial and human support?
- How will the University ensure that WCM users have the skills and tools to use the WCM successfully?
- How will the success of the new WCM be evaluated?
Feel free to email us with your thoughts about other issues we should consider. You can contact us at webmaster@csuci.edu.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Our second Core Group meeting went well yesterday. We reviewed our requirements grid for Phase 1 of the project, and discussed the WCM survey in more detail.
The revised survey was shown to the group. It is designed in such a way to filter our responses for those employees that don't work on Web sites. For those that do work on Web sites (but haven't used our existing WCM system, Collage), we will be able to gather feedback on their needs for web publishing as well.
The group also discussed WCM use within the CSU system. As of today, 22 of 23 campuses have responded. 74% of campuses responded that they are using a WCM. 17% are using open source products (including Drupal, OpenCMS, WebGUI and Expression Engine), while the remainder use commercial products. The most popular WCM system within the CSU system is currently Hannon Hill Cascade Server; 5 campuses (22%) are using it or are in the process of implementing it.
Finally, in order to avoid confusion with other systems on campus, the team decided that the web content management project should use the acronym "WCM".
Our survey received approval to go live today, so we should be able to issue it within the next week.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Core Team had a productive meeting last to review the project plan, timeline and other information relevant to the project process.
A web-based survey is being developed to obtain feedback on the use of CI's existing WCM system. This survey will also establish baseline metrics to enable evaluation of future changes and success.
The Core Team felt it would be best to issue to the survey to all CI employees, not just those that use the current WCM system, to obtain meaningful feedback from those who are using the system as well as those that aren't.
The next Core Team meeting is scheduled for October 12, 2009.
Monday, September 14, 2009
No WCM system is perfect, and in using Collage for many years we've come to understand its strengths and weaknesses. However, Serena decided to discontinue new development of the software in early 2008.
CSUCI is using this opportunity to evaluate its current use of WCM, and select a product that more closely suits its needs. The project, which began during Summer 2009, will continue through the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 semesters.
The CSUCI WCMS Evaluation web site will provide updates on the project status, as well as project plans, timelines, and other relevant documentation.