1. An Awfully Big Adventure
Web Content Management at
Loughborough University

2. About Loughborough University
• Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities
• University of the Year 2008/09
• THE Best Student Experience four years in succession
• UK’s premier university for sport
• Internationally renowned for research
• Official Preparation Camp Headquarters for Team GB prior to 2012
• Large single site campus in the heart of England

3. 437 acre, single site campus

4. Our website before Site Manager
• No University-wide content management system
• Enthusiasm for web publishing
• Publishing predominantly using Dreamweaver
• Variety of ‘University’ publishing styles
• No global navigation – sites presented in isolation

5. Key objectives
• Introduce consistent publishing mechanism to University
• Publishing solution that required little or no technical skills
• Allow more people in departments to update their web content
• Better integrate website with University’s corporate systems
• Re-use content across a variety of different sites
• Professionalise web publishing – right tools for the job

6. The Challenge
• Move all academic and support service departments into WCMS
by end of 2012
• 80+ sites
• 250+ publishers
• Limited central resources
• Complicated by academic restructure

7. Approach to adoption
• Two years of planning (even before deciding on which WCMS)
• Implementation of standard publishing style
• Three pilot sites developed with T4
• Four academic pilot sites to be developed – December to April
• Phased adoption schedule – through to end of 2012
• Manual adoption – little or no automation
• Mobile version of all WCMS sites

8. What we’ve learned so far
• Manage expectations – WCMS not a solution to everything
• Careful planning is crucial
• Don’t rush into getting sites live
• Importance of communicating with wider University community
• Don’t underestimate how much people are attached to the old

9. Who am I?
Jonathan Walters
Web Development Manager
01509 223443
j.s.walters@lboro.ac.uk
www.twitter.com/jswalters