PVC Research and Information Management launched the University's new Web Content Management System last Thursday in the Council Room. The first site to go live using the Web CMS is the CELTS site, available at http://www.canberra.edu.au/celts/.
PVC R&IM made some interesting remarks at the launch about the need for Universities to be online for prospective students to do some research on where they might like to go: if you are not online, you don't exist for these cyber-generation students. One member of the Division's staff had such an experience in China in January this year when her Chinese hosts could not find the School of Education and Community Studies on the University's website, even though it was on the staff member's newly-printed business cards.
The University's Web Content Management System was built with the open source software MySource Matrix developed in Australia by Squiz.net. The system will simplify and automate the way web publishing and management takes place at the University: allowing content owners to edit their web pages in a browser-like environment rather than having to learn Dreamweaver or another complicated web-page editing system, or having to rely on others with web-editing skills to make the changes for them.
The Division's "marketing" websites will be transitioned to the system over the next year or so, but the timetable and strategy are still be determined by UCOnline Manager and the ICT Services team (ICT Services will take over the responsibility of hosting sites using the Web Content Management System, and will help with training, coordination and supervision of the sites hosted there).
TSU Team are aware of the future transition to the Web CMS, and, while our role in any changeover is unclear at the moment, any work that has been done on websites recently has been done in the knowledge of the new system coming in, and sites have been designed to transition easily to the Web CMS once this is required by ICT Services.
