Future directions: CMS aims for consistency and collaboration
14 August 2008
The CMS Forum Future Plans, held on 18 July 2008, discussed the future of ICT's Content Management System (CMS), outlining the enhancements that will benefit the system's various user groups.
The forum, attended by a wide array of users from the University community, aimed at fostering greater understanding about the CMS, reviewing its progress and development in the past, as well as advising its users of future plans.
Future Plans also highlighted the University's interdepartmental relationships in the Community portfolios as it was hosted by teams from the University's Digital & Print Media (DPM), ICT's Enterprise Application Training (EAT) and ICT's Community Solutions, all of whom are collectively responsible for the CMS system.
"This forum is a good start for communicating to all users of CMS what DPM and ICT have been doing in the past and will be doing in the future to improve the functionality of the CMS," says Peter Whitfield, Director ICT Solution Services, giving an overview of the CMS.
Jane Clements, Digital & Print Media Manager, gave an update on the Brand Project, an exciting initiative which utilises the CMS in order to brand all University websites using the new, more consistent template. Faculties, and the University at large, will benefit from the new template due to its increased accessibility, more streamlined presentation of information and, most importantly, its consistency.
The DPM team also demonstrated the New Splash Page Builder, an innovative application that enables a preview of how the future websites will appear with the use of the new University template.
Giving an overview CMS plans, Kym McInerney, from ICT Solution Services, presented highlights from the CMS Roadmap such as a new central web server cluster that adds high availability and dynamic applications to the system.
"In the near future, users will benefit from the CMS's enhanced usability through simplified user management, workflows and content editing," explains Kym McInerney from ICT Solution Services.
"Enhanced functionality will also be achieved through the FormBuilder, a CMS module that allows for the easy building and deployment of web form creation."
Webmasters will now be able to add and modify their site users directly within the CMS and workflows will be simplified to allow for self approval of work by Approvers and Webmasters. CMS users will also be able to use the cross browser WYSIWYG on text and table fields, allowing copy and paste from multiple applications.
Kris O'Brien, from the Community Solutions Support team, presented the last section of the CMS Forum. He spoke about the support provided by ICT to the University community, demonstrating the new support model which gives CMS users a clear understanding of the support process involved.
The CMS Forum was hosted by Anita Hoving from ICT's EAT team who also referred to the CMS training programs - which include customised team training sessions, user manuals and quick reference guides - all services which will also be enhanced for CMS users in the future.
The forum also displayed firsthand ICT's state-of-the art videoconferencing technology, with users from Dubbo and Cumberland campuses able to participate in real time.
Future Plans closed with a Question and Answer session, giving CMS users from the audience the opportunity to ask vexing questions.
