Stick To Your Guns

When you talk about a site oriented for prospective students (which is likely your main www.yourSchool.edu address), who are your clients? The academic department that has made a request  for added functionality? Or the student life group’s request for an online survey? How about the chancellor’s request to create an updated look for his office’s …

Virtues of “The Site”

I began my higher ed career in early 2008. From the outset, colleagues talked about the “core” site and how we would re-design it that year. I had no idea what core site meant so I asked (in my interviews, the term core was not used, just the generic “site”). They told me it was the …

Content Management Systems Aren’t Just For Techies

Will your organization install a new content management system soon? Are you a part of the vetting process? I know the developers out there are, but I hope you content/marketing/design/etc. types are too. Let’s face it, a CMS isn’t much good if its more painful than beneficial. The promises sound great, but the reality may …

Communicating With Students Beyond Email

In a discussion today, the issue of students not reading a certain group’s email newsletter came up. The group wanted a more effective way to communicate news since the emails weren’t being read and important information was going unnoticed. Intuition tells me that students today still use email, but more frequently opt for other methods …

The Case for Centralization

I recently wrote about the perils of decentralizing web operations. In this post, I’ll discuss the advantages of doing just the opposite — centralizing. But before I get into it, let me provide context to the discussion. I have no issue whatsoever with decentralization in terms of content. What I do have an issue with is …

Why Decentralization Doesn’t Work

Many traditional universities (most? all?) take a decentralized approach toward their websites, both in terms of creation and maintenance. It’s thought that a decentralized structure where each division, school, college, department and administrative unit effectively controls their space and content on the web is the best way to manage the overall site. Core web teams …