However, is it possible for a CMS to be counter-productive to those who have to use it? By this, I am referring not necessarily to the readers, but to the publishers that depend on it to disseminate their information. For a university, the publishers of content on the site are usually the professors. Short of the main site that acts to attract prospective student and faculty, a university’s website is mainly used by existing students to get access to course material and to communicate with the professors and teaching assistants. The true measure of a CMS should be how easily it allows the main publishers (in this, case the professors), to put their material on the site and make it readily available in a manner they like.

This is no simple problem. Many professors prefer a simple webpage, that’s plain and to the point – this is especially prevelant in technical courses. After all, it’s the content that counts right? If a student can’t find the important information they’re looking for (lecture notes, example problems), it add a slight bit of frustration that simply isn’t needed when taking a heavy course load.

Take my Queen’s University, my school, for example. They’ve recently rolled out the Apache Lenya CMS in a trial run for the ECE Department. From what I’ve been hearing from my professors, they generally do not like the new CMS. This isn’t so much due to how Lenya works, but rather how it’s been implemented. Take a look at a sample course home page. Though the page very much has the consistency of the main site, some professors are finding this limiting or obstructive. For one thing, the main left navigation always is present, and may be distracting to the main content that is displayed to the right. (This may also be due to the fact that the sidebar doesn’t have a different background colour.) Some professors have complained about this, and others have simply moved their course home pages to their own webspace on the Queen’s server, as seen for this course home page. Some simply prefer a more simplified layout devoid of the Queen’s “look & feel”.

So, is there a solution? I was interested to learn what Waterloo has adopted. Instead of a full-blown CMS, they have adopted templates used through the Adobe Contribute system. Additionally, they offered courses to teach users how to properly use the templates. From what I’ve read, they have lots of custom web applications running, and are unlikely to transit to a CMS because of this. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact, it may be the best for such a large site as a university’s website, which needs to serve many needs.

So, am I doing a complete 180 and advocating the removal of a CMS? No – not exactly. I just think the whole consistent “look & feel” may need to be tuned down. For the course home pages, a stripped-down template containing only the header and footer should be developed and used. This would allow professors to better present their material in the plain and simple format they’re used to, and would give this material front-and-center attention. This would encourage more to use the CMS; after all, if people don’t use it because they don’t like it, then a CMS is no better than a bunch of disorganized web pages.

Firstly, I am an engineering student, so it’s good to see other engineers out there who have seen the same interests as me. Additionally, it’s good to see that a CMS such as Drupal was chosen, as it’s been making headway in other universities as well. I’ve been playing with Drupal on my test box at home for about a month or so, and so far I’m very impressed with the quality of the system and the modules that are used to extend or add functionality. All of the modules are very structured, and adhere to a strict format, making them easy to install and configure. All things considered, it’s a very professional system – proof that open source software can be up to the quality of “professional” solutions.

Though one thing bothers me a bit. The main Queen’s site is apparently being run off of Apache Lenya, as mentioned above, and a pilot program is currently in the works. It’s been slowly introduced, so far, to manage the ECE Department’s site, and this is intended to test the viability of the CMS. If all is good, it’ll eventually be rolled out to a wider audience, as I understand it. However, with smaller sites such as EngSoc using Drupal (and other groups undoubtedly using something different, or no CMS at all), I wonder what will happen when the time comes for everything to be brought under one umbrella.

I generally don’t like being rigid, but for a site-wide website, I believe a single CMS or at least a unified system should be used. Obviously, this doesn’t mean the current actions towards Lenya or Drupal are bad; they’re obviously better than what was previously being used. But, a single CMS makes things easier to manage. I can understand EngSoc being a bit more independent, since it’s not run by the University, but oneness can have its advantages. Personally, I would have been happy to see everything run off Drupal, but I’m sure the web folks at Queen’s had their reasons for selecting Lenya.

Well, whatever happens, I’m using this opportunity to get involved. (finally) I’ve volunteered to help maintain the EngSoc website for next year, my last year of university, so hopefully I’ll be able to learn a thing or two and maybe improve a few things. We’ll see!

This is why when my university, Queen’s, decided to try out a CMS, it piqued my interest. I read about the progression of this, from the time they had to get input from various sources to when they had to define criteria that a CMS would have to meet in order to be selected. While these are baby steps, in relative terms, it’s a trip to the moon, since what they had before must have been a horrendous mess to keep up to date and to maintain.

There still is a lot of work to be done, however. The vast majority of the pages that form the Queen’s website still lack a common “look & feel”, which I believe is important for an institution. While organizing everything under a common CMS would take much effort because of the training that all staff would require to adjust to such a new system, (not to mention the adjustment the webmasters of each department would need), I think it is a necessary step in the overall evolution and update of the website.

As an example, Queen’s can look at the University of Waterloo’s website, inter-university rivalries notwithstanding. They clearly have a defined look & feel, and have a nice web development blog that seems to be in tune with current web standards, technologies, and practices. (As evidence, look at their standards-based design for their sites.) Most of their departmental and faculty websites also share the same styles, and standards-based designs, at least on their front-pages, as I’m sure there are a few static back-pages that haven’t been integrated into their system.

With more and more universities making the switch to a CMS for easier management, the upcoming changes for Queen’s could not have come at a better time. I only hope that this pilot project does not get stalled or otherwise delayed; ideally, I’d like to see site-wide changes before I graduate next year.