Content management system will redefine CCU website
By Debbie Conner, Associate Vice President for University Relations
Coastal Carolina University administrators have been determining how to move to a content management system for our website for almost a year now. The software system of choice – TerminalFour – will be implemented soon. In fact, initial training begins this month, and the home page will go live in March.
A content management system, or CMS, is a software system that allows organizations to easily manage the content on their web pages.
First, the state procurement process was employed to find the best and most affordable system, which turned out to be TerminalFour. Discussions started last May with faculty members and technology personnel from all around the state. An implementation team was formed of Abdallah Haddad, Rob Wyeth, Donna Rogers, Fadi Barody, Matt Hogue and me.
We quickly learned that Coastal Carolina was the only college or university in the state that was not currently utilizing a CMS. And, since there are more than 400,000 pages under CCU's domain name, there is a lot of content going unmanaged. Those pages include departmental pages, student clubs and organizations, individual faculty pages and more. As we move into the new system, we will be able to disengage dead links and ensure all content is up to date.
The new system offers a variety of templates to registered users who will create and mange their own pages. Little or no previous web development experience is required. Content management systems allow users to keep the content on their pages up to date, which can result in higher search engine rankings for pages and ensures content is relevant to those who are visiting our pages.
No one knows your content better than you, and the CMS allows each department to control its own information and update it as often as needed without submitting a work order and waiting for someone else to do it for you. Through the use of key graphics and templates, the CMS also gives some standardization to the University’s pages while allowing for creativity with options for video and other types of media. RSS feeds linked to the pages can also help departments create a following through social media and other features.
Workflow management is another huge benefit of the system. Various people will be able to add content to a page while allowing for approvals prior to publishing.
An overview of the system will be presented on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 1 p.m. in Wall Auditorium. Training dates and registration for training will begin immediately.
