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The Organization
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.uwm.edu) belongs to one of the nation's premier public higher education systems—the University of Wisconsin. One of 13 universities in the system, UWM offers more than 29,000 students a comprehensive liberal arts and professional education through 156 degree programs, and is one of two public doctoral research universities in the state.
The Situation
Colleges and universities share the common goal of bolstering recruitment, donation, and alumni outreach objectives. To accomplish this in today’s Web-centric society, Universities must deliver a rich online experience where future students, current students, alumni, and faculty can interact. This requires a well branded Web site with a consistent look and feel, easy navigation, fresh content, and the ability to build communities of interest to keep visitors coming back.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s (UWM) Web site was outdated, and its design stale. UWM needed to take control of its online brand and ensure consistency across the site while keeping content compelling and easy to navigate. It needed the ability to leverage the Web site so it could reach out to the community in new ways—such as forums, blogs, and calendars. In short, it needed to do a complete site re-design. But IT resources were already strained with a backlog of work. And the university’s current method of managing web content was far too complex for the everyday user, often requiring IT to create, edit, and publish Web content using HTML.
The Solution
Aligning with the administration’s vision, a team of faculty, staff, and students developed a strategy that promised to enable the university to leverage the site as its primary communications and recruiting vehicle, while alleviating the IT bottleneck. The strategy was twofold: Implement a new Web content management solution; and undergo a complete site redesign. The university required a flexible and scalable solution that would empower more than 29,000 students and approximately 3,500 faculty and staff to easily create, manage, and publish Web content—without the need for excessive IT support, or the need to write code. After a rigorous selection process, UWM chose the CommonSpot™ content management system by PaperThin to power its new site.
The Benefits
IT Defined Ease-of-Use for the University
UWM’s Web architect was able to define ease-of-use for the university through CommonSpot’s flexible and configurable browser-based framework. Security permissions and access assignments are easily maintained by IT with CommonSpot’s multi-level security architecture. This enabled IT to maintain control, while handing over the controls for most of the day-to-day management of content to everyday users.
Authors Are Self-Sufficient & Productive
CommonSpot's functionality is provided entirely through the browser, eliminating the need for client software, technical training or complex scripting. Faculty and administrative staff now easily create, edit, approve and publish content without the need to enlist IT support. Also, CommonSpot’s powerful content reuse capabilities helped UWM build a News and Events section where staff easily update and display news and events throughout the site, keeping content fresh, and compelling site visitors to return to see what’s new and on the horizon.
Marketing Took Control of the Online Brand
Together with IT, Marketing developed a variety of pre-defined templates and page layout options that help everyday users effortlessly build Web pages while maintaining brand consistency, and a common look and feel across the site. Content authors pick from a series of predefined templates designed to handle their content requirements. Cascading Style Sheets also help to ensure a consistent look and feel throughout a site.
IT Bottleneck Eliminated
CommonSpot’s inherent ease of use enabled IT to develop the new site quickly and easily; and train content owners to take over the creation and management of content, and most of the day-to-day management of the content management system—without the need for extensive IT support.
The Return
Today, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Web site offers visitors a compelling online glimpse of the university that mirrors the culture of the actual campus. The site is well branded, well organized, easy to navigate, and has become the primary communication vehicle for recruitment and fundraising. The management of content is now much easier for content authors, liberating IT from the chains of constant Web site management and helping the entire university to be more productive.
In 2007, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee won The Center for Digital Education's Best of Web Award in the Higher Education Web site category.
“[The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee] showed remarkable innovation. There are few environments that are more demanding of progressive technology use than in our nation's colleges and universities. This year's winners are exceptional examples of the incredible potential and promise of education technology.”
Marina Leight, VP of Education, Center for Digital Education
Site Information
URL: http://www.uwm.edu
Site Type: Internet
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