Facing a budget reduction of 10%, most universities would postpone investing in a Web content management system. However, for California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), a large budget cut made Web content management even more important. CSUMB found an innovative way to purchase and implement the Ingeniux Content Management System and it has already had a positive effect on their bottom line.

For CSUMB budget cuts impact departmental support staffing. With the new cuts, many departments could no longer afford the cost of hiring students, temp employees, or consultants to manually develop Web content. A content management system (CMS) was a great way to reduce Web production costs campus wide. It also meant that the university could start using the Web to provide better information services to students and faculty at a lower cost then traditional print publications.

The CSUMB team laid out a practical plan on how to buy, implement, and save money with a Web content management system. Their new Web site goes live in July and they are on budget. CSUMB Web Services Specialist Greg Pool and Marketing & Publications Manager Sean Madden share 10 budget-savvy content management strategies that are proven to work:

1.      Shift print costs to the Web
CSUMB is moving all key publications to the Web as the primary source. Historically information was managed in Microsoft Word documents and then put into a Quark layout for printing. The print version was generated first, and then the content was repurposed to the Web. The problem with this approach is that the content on the Web was often out of date. Because the Web is the dynamic presentation point and print material is static – it did not make sense to support the Web though print. Now the Web is the definitive source of information and all content is created and managed as XML files in the content management system. When it comes time to layout the catalog or another print piece, the marketing team exports content out of Ingeniux CMS and into Quark.

With a more proactive Web program CSUMB has dramatically reduced printing costs. They have already reduced catalog expenses by over 60% and are confident that they can capture further savings. Additionally, the university is printing a lot less. The Marketing group did an audit of all print publications. The litmus test was whether the publication was intended for people within the university or outside of the university. Anything intended solely for people within the university will, in most cases, only be published on the Web. As all students and employees have Internet access provided by the university this does not limit accessibility and most people prefer the Web version.

One challenge CSUMB faced in shifting publications to the Web was legal requirements regarding catalog rights. The university is obligated to provide entering students all of the programs offered in the catalog for their entire time at the university.  With a dynamic catalog website as the primary source for a lot of catalog information, students would lack a definitive reference for services offered on their entering date. To solve this issue, at the start of each semester a static version of the catalog will be outputted as HTML and made available as a historic reference. As Ingeniux CMS inherently supports this capability it does not add time or cost to the online publishing process.

2.      Forge strong IT and Marketing partnerships
A successful Web program requires a close working relationship between IT and Marketing groups. In this regard, CSUMB has a unique and enviable situation. They have always has a clear understanding that IT owns technology and Marketing owns content. Pool and Madden helped form a university-wide Web Planning and Advisory Team to deal with overarching issues, including content management. Because both departments had a vested interest in using content management they partnered to fund the software. Savings from Marketing publications were offered to help pay for the CMS. With the added funds, IT had the budget and justification to make a purchase. 

3.      Empower non-technical staff
Across the board budget cuts meant that departments did not have the staff expertise to manually update Web pages themselves, or the resources to outsource the job. Using Ingeniux CMS to automate Web publishing and empower administrative staff – rather then technical staff – to support Web pages, CSUMB Technical Services was able to provide departments an easy and inexpensive way to update Web content.

4.      Reduce concurrent software licenses
CSUMB supports over 40 virtual domains and hundreds of departmental and administrative Web sites within the CSUMB.EDU domain. Prior to using content management each departmental content contributor needed a licensed Web design tool, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver. Additionally because the design process was very graphics oriented, expensive photo editing software was often needed by editorial staff. Using content management, CSUMB eliminated the need for desktop Web publishing software and dramatically lowered the number of people who needed photo-editing software – resulting in a considerable forward savings in concurrent software licenses and upgrades.
 

5.      Use content management to reduce Web training costs
Prior to using a centralized content management system Web training and support costs were very high. Frequent turn over of students and temps hired to update Web pages necessitated a continual training process. Additionally, individually developing Web pages meant that every content contributor needed be trained in HTML or authorware such as DreamWeaver and would also need to use graphics editing capabilities. By shifting to Ingeniux CMS’s non-technical Web authoring client anyone in the department – from the Admin to a faculty member to the Director – can update Web pages. Training is generally less then two hours and a more stable force of contributor’s means less training sessions. Also, the simplicity of the Ingeniux interface promotes peer-to-peer training that takes the burden completely off of IT and marketing.

6.       Develop a standard design template
Well before implementing a content management system CSUMB's Web Planning and Advisory Team (WebPAT) developed a standardized design template that supported all departments. The design provided cohesive branding for the university, standardized navigation so users could quickly link to other departments from any page, and leaves room for departments to add a logo and internal navigation. Using the standardized template has enabled the university to reduce the amount of time spent on laying out pages and re-inventing the Web format. It has also provided more flexibility in rolling out the content management system. Pages developed in the CMS can stand side-by-side with legacy content and still remain cohesive.

7.       Build incentives to a common look and feel
As much as the WebPAT would like to control look and feel across the CSUMB.EDU domain, it is practically impossible to dictate Web policy within a university. Instead of fighting battles with different departments, WebPAT uses content management as an incentive. Departments are only allowed access to the CMS if they agree to use the university’s standardized design templates. Additionally, on university business cards many staff and faculty wanted their Web sites listed – a service Marketing was reluctant to provide because of the eclectic nature of many internal Web sites. Using content management as the incentive, Marketing agreed to list any site on a business card that adopted CMS templates and workflow. So far three out of CSUMB’s four administrative divisions have unanimously adopted CMS and the only group that has not fully embraced the system is Academic Affairs, which for practical reasons is coming aboard ala cart. WebPAT has a backlog of 25 Web sites to bring into the content management system.

8.      Distribute Web authoring and review
Regardless of how you go about it, the task of creating and maintaining tens of thousands of Web pages is a lot of work. CSUMB decided that the key to solving the content burden was to use content management workflow to involve more people in Web authoring and editing. In this way, updating the Web is a natural part of many people’s job responsibilities. Pool and Madden expect that in the near future half of CSUMB’s one thousand employees will be using Ingeniux CMS to author content. Besides workload reduction there is another benefit to distributing Web responsibility – accountability. When department heads are included in departmental workflow it is their responsibility if content is out of date or fails to meet standards. As the Web has become important in attracting and retaining students in their majors – most departments heads are thankful to have control of their sections.

For the catalog, which at 250+ pages is one of the largest single publications, there are over 50 workflows and 150 content contributors accessing the CMS. With all of the people making content contributions the impact on authoring the catalog is pretty light. In terms of editing, the publication group uses Ingeniux’s Show Differences feature to track changes between versions. This allows them to only review what has changed in documents and simplifies the process of producing the catalog in CMS.

9.     Place Marketing at the end of workflow
One of the big problems that the university faced in their early Web program was standardized language. Each department had unique terminology they used to discuss requirements and various programs. The result was that students had a hard time understanding the actual guidelines. With content management, CSUMB is able to put Marketing at the end of the workflow. For Marketing the Web is just another publication and they are ultimately responsible for ensuring that publications use a common language and meet editorial standards. This has improved the quality of content and saved the time-consuming manual revision process that was necessary before using workflow. 

10.   Reuse Content
One of the advantages in choosing Ingeniux CMS is that it allows content to be easily reused and repurposed. This dramatically lowers content development costs in two ways. First, documents can be written once and then shared by many departments. This gives each department access to library of content that can be simply clicked-and-dragged into their section. Secondly, a document can be automatically formatted for different outputs. For example the course catalog can be automatically outputted to a printer friendly version or co-branded to fit other designs.

Conclusion

CSUMB has proven that decreased or tight budgets are all the more reason to move Web publishing to a content management system. With a good plan, plenty of teamwork and some innovative strategies, the Web can become a cost-effective and positive force in campus communications. 

Ingeniux In Higher Education
Ingeniux is the leading provider of Web content management systems to higher education institutions. Ingeniux CMS is used by leading colleges and universities to empower non-technical content contributors, uniformly control Web presentation, and take control of Web development. Featuring a pure XML architecture, PC and Macintosh client software, and special licensing programs for higher education, Ingeniux is committed to helping institutions of all sizes build the next generation Internet.

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