Mark's Shiny New Toy

During the past few weeks, we created and posted a new position for the W&M web team. Lucky for us, Mark C. Windley has accepted the position of Web Project Manager/CMS Administrator. Based on his strong technical background and project management experience, Mark was the ideal candidate for this new job.

Here are a few other pluses about Mark that "factored into his promotion."

• He's a William and Mary grad.
  (Enough said.)


• He has two bachelor's degrees - one in fine arts and one in computer science.
  (How cool is that).


• As predicted by the above, he's a great writer.
  (Re-read his post about LEGOs.)

posted by Susan Evans

Cascade on a need to know basis.

The new W&M website will launch in less than three weeks. For now, learning how to use the new web CMS is on a need to know basis.

Tomorrow, we start week three of content migration - a fancy way of saying more W&M web managers will be coming to Blow 311 to create new websites in Cascade. We expect to see Kathy Larrieu this week as she finishes up some Arts & Sciences sites. And, Amy Sikes will be working with us on the new Financial Aid site.

David Williard is continuing the build-out of the new News & Events site - the functionality for adding multimedia files to Cascade should be ready for David to use. Last week, Erin Zagursky (also from University Relations) devoted some of her Friday afternoon to learning the new system for creating web pages.

The consensus is that Cascade is very easy to use. I'm enjoying the fact that folks are using it and we've offered no formal training and no documentation.

Quote of the week from Blow 311 came from Renell Franklin (Development). When asked about using Cascade, Renell proclaimed, "It's easy. You'd have to be a biscuit head not to understand it."

posted by Susan Evans

Don't try this at home.

We've occasionally blogged about what's going live when the new website launches on July 31. Until now, we've summarized it qualitatively.

Last week, we built out the information architecture for all of the go-live features, pages and sites within Cascade. Despite an IA that requires 1,150 rows in an Excel spreadsheet, we finished on time. Andrew, Joel, Mark, and Tina: you always meet the goal!

---------------------
**Warning: Spoiler**
(if you are involved in the build-out and migration of the new site, you may want to stop reading here)
---------------------

So let's go quantitative this time: there will be at least 808 new web pages on July 31. And the vast majority of these new pages will have all new content! Want to know why the number of rows in the spreadsheet exceeds the number of new pages? Because we also built folders in Cascade for images, graphics, and documents in the new sites.

This 808 page total doesn't even count the individual blog entry pages that our brand-new student, staff and faculty bloggers are currently writing. I'm betting we hit 1,000 pages.

And photography - do you really want to go there? Okay, latest count, there are nearly 350 photos (and we are identifying more as I write this).

posted by Susan Evans

Shiny, Slick, and There!

The new hardware and software needed to launch the "production Cascade" at W&M is shiny, slick, and there. Not a day behind schedule, our technical and engineering teams are unquestionably reliable.

I love it when I get an email message filled with acronyms, technical terminology, engineering references, and server names. It usually means things are going well. Roger Clark's Friday afternoon message didn't disappoint - the bottom line, we have the web server and software environment we need (and deserve!) to re-launch www.wm.edu.

Many thanks to Andrew Bauserman, Roger Clark, Clarke Morledge, Eric Myers, Chris Peck, and Mark Windley. I know you were just doing what you do - but chocolate cake will arrive on Monday or Tuesday.

Other readers of this message: your chocolate cake is virtual.

posted by Susan Evans

It's Like Legos

My son is a big fan of Legos- He's got quite the collection, too. Mostly vehicles, Mars Mission, Star Wars, Aqua Raiders, Batman. There was a time when he needed my help to build these things and I was all too happy to oblige. He would dump the pieces in a big colorful pile on the floor, open up the instructions and we'd sit together criss-cross-applesauce in the middle of it all counting Lego circles and glancing back and forth between the picture on the box (which is usually ripped beyond recognition by the excitement of getting started), the pictures in the instructions booklet, and the connected pieces as they begin to take form.

But all too quickly the time of needing Dad's help in this process has passed and I've been relegated to the proud parent who watches the operation from a perch on our couch, occasionally setting down my coffee as I am called on to rake the carpet for a missing light saber handle or booster flame. I have to admit I really miss being down on on the floor where the action is- for a couple of hours reliving the simple joys and occasional frustration that come with being an anxious kid.

Well, it seems I'll have my chance again. W&M bought a HUGE Lego set called Cascade Server and guess who gets to play with it... Yes, that's right! Mom, more Ovaltine please!

So now we have our Lego set and we've dumped the pieces on the floor. We have our nice picture on the box, a beautiful suite of designs provided by mStoner. (Ok, so maybe we ripped the box a little in our excitement, but can you blame us? It's been 7 years!) So, where are the instructions? Here's where the anology turns just a little. Cascade Server has tons of Legos and there are instructions for building some really cool things, but not exactly the cool thing that we see on our box. So Global Image is helping us create our instructions. Grrr... but I want to play with our toy now!

“Patience child,” my mother would say.

We could probably jump right in and slap something together that looks like the picture on the box, but I imagine within a few minutes of playing the wings would fall off and when we'd try to squeeze the wings back into place the tail would get loose or the cockpit would pop out of place and we'd raise our fists and stomp our feet and toss what is left in the basket where toys we never play with go to die.

Building our CMS the right way is worth the time it takes and if we have patience I know we'll have something special. Maybe it will sit on our dresser in the toy hall of fame- the first toy we see when we open our eyes in the morning.

But wait, I haven't mentioned the best part about Lego toys- when you are tired of playing with whatever you constructed, you can transform it. A car can become a boat or maybe a ship or maybe even the ever famous, most awesome flying boat/car with triple boosters and rocket launchers! I think with Cascade Server the fun is really just starting and it doesn't end July 31st.

posted by Mark Windley

What's up with Cascade?

An interesting 2 weeks in Williamsburg:
Our new development server is up and running. We've used it to build some sample pages that we can publish to a development web server. And since users will eventually need to login with the same WMuserid and password they are using everywhere, we'll be setting up that connector as well. There's so much more Cascade can do that we're still anxious to see...

Work in progress:
But our own Cascade server is not where the real action's taking place. Our friends at Global Image are doing the heavy lifting for us—customizing their own install of Cascade with our Templates and the functionality we've been defining over the last month. We're continuing our weekly phone calls and email exchanges with Michael Burks about this "Functional Spec."—which we've hopefully nailed down after our recent modifications to the design suite. On top of this, we are now 4 calls into a 3-calls-a-week technical implementation schedule with our programmers, Kevin Zink and Joel Stevens. Kevin and Joel have their jobs cut out for them—walking us through implementation choices and data definitions, building templates and layouts for each of our page types, and helping us understand the magic behind the curtain. Did I mention they have only 5 weeks to get this done?

The two shall become one:
All of the programming, layouts, data definitions and templates from the Global Image server will migrate onto our own test and production servers in early July for Beta testing and sign-off. Then the final phase begins–pouring in pages and pages of content in time for launch.

There's plenty happening behind the scenes. We'll try to keep you updated as things move along.

posted by Andrew Bauserman

The State of Cascade

Thanks to some quick and excellent work from Roger Clark, we have a development instance of Cascade Server! But Roger's work isn't done . . . he will now begin the build of test and production environments for Cascade.

Future blog posts will keep you up to date on Cascade at W&M. Mark Windley and Andrew Bauserman are in regular contact (three conference calls per week!) with mStoner's sister company, Global Image. The new W&M website will actually be built off site by Global Image and then transferred to Roger's shiny, new production instance of Cascade later this summer.

Recently Hannon Hill had some nice things to say about the W&M web redesign project on their team blog.

posted by Susan Evans

Where in the world is roclar ?

roclar = the WMuserid and nickname for Roger Clark, the IT Unix engineer who is a favorite guru of the re.web team

We don't know where roclar is right now, but we do know what he's doing. Last week, we got the license for Hannon Hill Cascade and Roger (think roclar) is doing what it takes to install it on campus. Never underestimate the complexity of installing enterprise software - Roger will orchestrate many inter-related elements like:

• hardware (web servers)
• database
• security
• load-balancing (multiple web servers in case one fails)

Thanks in advance for the great foundation, Roger.

P.S. Check out the Hannon Hill announcement about W&M as a new customer.

posted by Susan Evans

re.web Podcast (an encore performance) - We're Buying Cascade

Episode 16 of the re.web podcast is called "It's worth saying out loud."

Links to the re.web content within the W&M on iTunes U site:

• subscribe to podcast (does not require iTunes)
  


• download episode 16 (does not require iTunes)
  

posted by Susan Evans

Dodged a Bullet?

Anyone catch this article on CMSWatch.com? Serena Collage to go off into the sunset

Yikes! Serena Collage was a content management system on our short list just a few months ago! It appears to be a solid product and we heard positive reports from current higher ed customers, but I have to admit, this announcement does not come as a complete shock. The first warning flag popped up in my head when I tried to find Serena Collage on their web site. It was not mentioned on their home page and not listed in their fairly extensive Products menu. Rather, it was listed as it is today on the “All Products” page... Can you find it? Just s-c-r-o-l-l...d-o-w-n...t-o...t-h-e...b-o-t-t-o-m. There! Hmm, An outer province of an overextended empire? Maybe Serena Collage fell to the Visigoths?

I am not so far removed from the private sector to remember that “business is business” and restructuring of this sort, especially in the technical world, is commonplace. It's Starbucks in a suburban strip mall. (You're among friends here, you can admit that their coffee drinks are pretty darn good. Does anyone remember Orange Julius? What ever happened to that guy? Coffee and corndogs- Anyone doing that yet?) Dementia aside, I feel sorry for Serena customers who will scramble over the next few months to revisit their content management strategy. But they will prevail. Great thing about working in Higher Education, it is just this sort of challenge and adversity that provides the spark needed by those waiting for an opportunity. And besides who is to say Serena Collage will not be bought by one of the big fish who'll make it even better?

Should we worry that the same thing could happen to Cascade Server? I suppose anything is possible, but as if this mere thought “put it to the universe”* (maybe with a little help from Google Alerts) check out the quick response from Hannon Hill in a March 18^th Press release:

Hannon Hill Reaffirms Commitment to Clients of Higher Education Industry - Redefining 'Best Practices' for CMS Vendors

We have talented people here at W&M and no doubt we would have survived using a potential end of life product. But, are we comforted knowing the long-term commitment Hannon Hill continues to demonstrate to Cascade Server and Higher Education customers? Absolutely!!! I think....

Posted by Mark Windley

* A phrase common in my house. When I dare to have a negative thought I am scolded be my wife, “Don't put it to the universe!” This is an increasingly difficult situation for an aging pessimist such as myself. That being said, I expect a lot of traffic on the ride home for writing this.. or maybe a flat tire...

GUEST BLOGGER: Letter from a W&M Web Editor...

Dear re.web team,

I am beginning to make plans for the summer and I wanted to get a bit of information about the re.web project and its timelines. I typically review my site in the summer and want to plan effectively; knowing how the re.web project will affect me would be helpful. I have a few burning questions:

Is there a timeline for the campus to migrate to the new look and content management system (CMS)? If so, when will I be asked to do this?

Also, as we migrate, it seems there should be a change in the tone or feel of the content. Is this something everyone will need to do on their own, or will there be some assistance?

Okay, you can you tell I am excited and a bit anxious about moving to the new format. As a web editor, I am curious about what all this means for me. Any insight would be great.

-Holly Agati
Webmaster for Residence Life

Commence Negotiations

Do we have a CMS yet?

We're getting there! Read on...

The sound of Silence

Did you notice re.web has been silent on the issue of CMS selection since posting "Have we met?" shortly after the January 24 demonstrations of Cascade and RedDot by our friends at Global Image.

If you haven't already, you might want to read that post. In it we summarize feedback from those of you who attended; and in the 14 associated comments, we explain several of the differences in the way Cascade and RedDot implement specific key features.

Digging Deeper

We already had a demo. What else do we want to know?

Everything! We have been reviewing both Cascade and RedDot extensively, researching numerous questions, reading through knowledge base articles and user forum posts, and talking to CMS administrators at universities using each product.

I can't summarize every question we've thought up. But fortunately, our colleagues at Virginia Tech published an outstanding RFP as part of their Web CMS selection last year. You can get a sense of the level of detail of our questions by looking over sections A-L. (Thanks VT!)

Realizing that this RFP hit the streets months before the tragedy last April, and the subsequent demands on Web communication at VT, the questions in the RFP are prescient—and I'm sure the folks who wrote it were commended as the CMS negotiations progressed into April and May.

So, do we have a CMS yet?

As of today, we are opening negotiations with Hannon Hill for the purchase of the Cascade Server Web CMS.

As Susan said earlier: "Good choices are made from good options"—and both Cascade and RedDot are strong contenders in the Web CMS marketplace.

Here are a few points of interest regarding Cascade:

Cascade is currently in use at universities such as Duke, Cornell, Brandeis, and even down the road at the University of Richmond.

Cascade is on a Virginia Association of State Colleges and University Purchasing Professionals (VASCUPP) contract, which means another participating Virginia university awarded a contract based on an RFP from which all VASCUPP schools may buy. We will now attempt to customize a package of software, support, and training to meet our specific needs.

The re.web team believes that Cascade is a good fit for William and Mary. We particularly like the Asset Factories.

Asset Factories allow our implementation team to define types of content such as standard pages, News, Events, or Press Releases which will allow the user to fill in a few fields and have the CMS create the page in the correct location, link it to the appropriate template, and move it into the correct workflow. Asset Factories can also be associated with images and other types of files and media to simplify content creation.

If you click through above, you can also check out the WYSIWYG Editor, Inline Spell Checker, Image Editor, and many other features (some of which are for us programmer types). The Advanced section of the Knowledge Base gives you a hint of the power behind the scenes in Cascade, via XML/XSLT, Web Services (included SOAP/WSDL APIs), plug-ins, and the Cascade Advanced Server Toolkit (CAST).

Another thing we really like: It's all there for anyone to see— video demos, the Cascade Server Users' Forum, the Knowledge Base, and much more.

As one of my daughter's favorite characters would say . . .

Plus also, if you look at the Hannon Hill Products page you will notice that Cascade isn't competing for attention from Hannon Hill. Nor is it complicated to figure out which modules or add-ons we should buy—they are all included in the base product.

posted by Andrew Bauserman

Have we met? An update on the CMS demonstrations

I don't believe we have met before. I apologize, I hope that will change soon. It was a nice turnout at the CMS demonstrations. There were a lot of new faces for me. (So, how much longer can I use the “I am new here” excuse?) Anyway, I am glad we peaked the interest of so many and we were able to collect some great feedback on both Cascade Server and RedDot.

Here's a summary of the feedback we collected.

Those of you who like Cascade...

• found the dashboard clean and intuitive
• liked the folders and the representation of pages in relation to parent, child, and sibling pages
• liked that it reminded you of Dreamweaver and the current WM Web Templates
• preferred the tree view in searching for links and assets
• found the interface more intuitive

The Cons:

• sunrise/sunset of a page limited to a single cycle
• the need to create folders for "children" pages
• can't preview pages you are linking to within the link management window
• cannot upload external graphics “on the fly” (while WYSIWYG editing) (Retraction: You CAN upload graphics while you are editing a page in WYSIWYG)
• workflow creation required XML with hard-coded users/groups (Retraction: It does not require XML, there is a workflow builder, we did not see this in detail)
  
• aggregating news into lists seems complicated

Those of you who liked RedDot ...

• liked it's image manipulation features
• found it easier to create "children" pages
• liked that you can check visually that a page you want to link to is correct
• preferred the internal search for finding links and assets
• liked the “Keyword linking” for aggregating news into lists
• liked how easy workflow creation seemed
• liked that a page can have infinite relationships (parents)
• found the interface more intuitive

The Cons:

• too many pop-up windows within editing
• no viewable folder structure to see relationships of pages
• requires IE for some administration

As far as the “cons,” we are looking into the implementation options of both products to see what we can address. Both Cascade Server and RedDot have some flexibility including plugins and customization options that we were not shown in these short and specific demonstrations.

Unfortunately, web editors, we still have a tough decision to make, and most unfortunate of all some of you may be disappointed. However, we take some solace in the scores we collected on this statement- “With training I think I can learn this product.” Where 5 = strongly agree, across all three of Thursday's sessions both Cascade Server and RedDot received an average between 4.3 and 4.75! We're convinced either of these products will do what we need and please remember whichever way we go, we intend to give you the training you need. So maybe we will meet after all.


posted by Mark Windley

Wow, what a turnout!

Great turnout for the CMS Demonstration today - we had nearly one hundred show up for the three sessions. Kevin Zink from Global Image did a great job showing the features of Hannon Hill's Cascade and RedDot CMS.

We're resting ... more once we recover.

Thanks All!!

posted by Susan Evans

Weekly re.web Podcast: Its Time to Choose

Episode twelve of the re.web podcast is called "Good Choices Are Made from Good Options."

Links to the re.web content within the W&M on iTunes U site:

• subscribe to podcast (does not require iTunes)
  


• download episode twelve (does not require iTunes)
  


• download the transcript for episode twelve (PDF, does not require iTunes)
  

posted by Susan Evans

What's a CMS: A Final Bash

The College will soon be selecting a Web Content Management System as part of the re.web initiative. The decision will take into account feedback from a wide range of individuals with differing backgrounds, and different levels of interaction with the web.

In fact, if you are part of the College community, you can participate in our CMS demonstration events and provide us with your opinions as well.

For our loyal readers who wish to be prepared participants for this event, we've posted the last of our explanations about CMS features and their uses. Here are some questions we've addressed:

Why Comply?
Is there more than text?
Must we say IA?
Does it play nicely with others?

That just about covers it. Is there something else you would like the CMS to do? Or maybe something you'd like to see on the W&M web after re.web? Let us know.

For the curious, this week's title was inspired by my favorite Rowan Atkinson clip, A final bash, from his live stage show.


posted by Andrew Bauserman

Syndicated, Incorporated

You've heard of Syndication.

Maybe you've heard of the "Weird Al" Yankovic parody whose title I borrowed for this post: Syndicated Inc. (if not, you can preview it in iTunes, of course).

But what does Syndication have to do with a CMS?

What is the significance of RSS?

And while we're digging into oddball CMS terminology, what does the rising and setting of the sun have to do with our web site?

See the discussion of our latest two feature highlights:

• Syndication
• Content Scheduling

As always, we'd love to know what you think!


posted by Andrew Bauserman

Tough Choices

What if it came down to this...

The re.web project team has been compiling CMS product specs, grilling vendors, running references, and bugging our friends at mStoner and Global Image for their opinions on CMS products.

You may be wondering:

Have you guys selected a CMS yet?

Well, "not yet" is the best answer we have so far. But here's something we've discovered:

Perfection is elusive!

Since November, I've been explaining some of the features we're looking for in a CMS. It's a lot of information, and the direct benefits are often hard to visualize. But we're doing our homework, building spreadsheets, and seeing many different approaches to get at the same result.

In doing this research, we've found that no single product is "the best" in every category. Here's an example:

There's a product we've seen that has a super-easy interface for the average content editor to make updates. But when we finally had the opportunity to get hands-on, we found out that this slick experience is only for folks using Internet Explorer on Windows.

So we thought we'd survey our web editors. How many could possibly be using Firefox, Opera, or Safari? Turns out, it's close to 50%. Does that rule out the super-easy product?

Maybe, if this were the only pair of issues we had to weigh. But we need to compare the complexity of building Templates, ease of reusing content, and many other factors.

Our goal over this next week, before we leave for break, is to come up with a plan. Not just a plan for weighing these criteria, but a plan for involving some other folks around campus to help us wrestle with these issues.

There really is a lot going on behind the scenes right now. So far, many of you just have our word for it. Watch this space over the next few weeks and I think you'll start to see much more tangible evidence!

For those who are interested in how our Web editors compare to the rest of the Web, here are recent statistics on browser usage. And here's Wikipedia's info about the second browser war.

posted by Andrew Bauserman

Two more weeks, two more CMS features...

It's been two weeks since we last discussed Content Management Systems. But that doesn't mean we have let the topic rest!

If you have been reading the blog, you know that we have been busy recently. Voltaire and Devon had the opportunity to visit with our colleagues at VIMS, speak to the Board of Visitors, and have less formal meetings with other folks while they were here.

What you might not know is that the re.web project team has been hard at work behind the scenes:

• We took a trip across the bridge to begin technical conversations with the ITNS staff at VIMS prior to the mStoner visit.
• Mark Windley has been calling and emailing CMS vendors, trying to find out which products provide the features we most desire (all these cool features we've been telling you about).
• And Mark and I both have been running down references on some of the key CMS vendors, to see what other institutions think.

So that's our excuse for taking a week off from the exciting discussion of CMS features... But now we're back, with two cool new features to highlight:

• Workflow
• Content Reuse

See this week's discussion, and let us know what you think!

posted by Andrew Bauserman

More of the Inner Working of a CMS

The College is on Thanksgiving Break. But we just can't stop thinking about all the cool features we're discovering within a fully integrated mid-tier web content management system (CMS)!

Link Management

Shall we check every page on our server every day, clicking on every link just to be sure that the links continue to work? Well, that's one way to keep things working.

Versioning

In our current Web environment, I have had occasion to work with users to restore content that has been inadvertently deleted...

Are you thinking, "There's got to be a better way?" See this week's discussion, then let us know that you think.


posted by Andrew Bauserman