Friday, September 23, 2011

Update on CMS Evaluation Project

Colleagues,

In June 2011, I shared early plans to evaluate new web content management tools. I’d like to provide an update on this work.

Our first step has been to carefully profile our existing implementation of the Cascade CMS. The objectives of this evaluation are to:

·       Ensure that we thoroughly understand how people use the system today.
·       Identify needs which are not being met by the current CMS implementation.
·       Determine whether the existing technology can be extended, upgraded or modified to meet these needs, or if a replacement is necessary.

We wanted to give you an update on our search for a new CMS platform.  Our first step has been to carefully profile our existing deployment of Cascade, in part to ensure that we deeply understand how people use the system today and also to be certain that the existing technology cannot be extended (rather than replaced) to meet our needs.  We're planning to conclude this phase of the effort by the end of the 2011is calendar year.  From there, we will be able to provide a more clear roadmap of ourshare a plan for next steps.

As this effort has developed, we realize that we cannot continue the moratorium we imposed on new sites in the CMS.  At the same time, as our service is currently structured, we have (far) more work than we have people to attend to it.  Effective immediately we are lifting the moratorium.  Note that we still request that you publish outside normal working hours whenever possible.

However, in the near future we will be implementing additional processes to streamline our CMS work so we can more effectively meet the needs of the campus community.  In general we will be adding more structure to our engagement process so that we can maintain consistent response times to client requests.   We'll update you with these changes as they become better defined.

Thanks for your patience as we work through these issues. As always, we welcome your  questions and comments.

Thanks,

Doug Blair

Assistant Director, Computing Services