Letter to Site Publishers

This letter is to inform you that in Spring 2005, the Office of Web Systems Development will implement and deploy a campus-wide look for the university. This means that the university web site will have a consistent, uniformed look rather than a variety of looks, as in the past. Under this change, the appearance will become the sole responsibility of the CSU Web Systems Development Office. Studies have found that users are comfortable with sites that have a consistent look, that it provides easy navigation, a sense of stability, and that they can get needed information quickly and move on. They are not looking for a site that reflects campus politics or lack of unity. Currently, many publishers are not using the CSU Global navigation with the CSU word mark on their sites, and some are using the Official Seal. Moreover, as we change over to a uniformed product site, the Office of Web Systems Development will remove all Front Page extensions from the server. In the past, the use of several products has made it impossible to make the site manageable. We will be using the Macromedia Web Publishing Content Management System (CMS) for development. Our site content publishers/editors will be using Macromedia Contribute to update and publish their content.

Why a Content Management System (CMS)?

1. It empowers non-technical users to post and update content
2. There is no learning curve
3. Updates across the web site
4. Workflow approval process
5. Uniform look across the whole web site
6. The web team can spend more time on high-level development projects

Benefits

• Site visitors, students, faculty and staff can navigate with comfort and ease
• A presence and branding that gives CSU an appearance of unity, stability and establishment
• A consistent look and feel across the web site by the use of templates provided by the Office of Web Systems Development

Present Concerns
The web systems office is receiving too many customer service calls or complaints for the following reasons:

1. Site publishers are changing file names and removing pages. This breaks links to pages on the CSU web site.
2. Site publishers are not making their sites accessible to those with disabilities
3. Copyright infringements and/or not adhering to Web Office standards
4. PDF files are being used in place of html pages
5. Lengthy text on web pages and outdated information
6. Site publishers not backing up their own content (Remember, not only is site editing your responsibility once you are issued a username and password, so is the responsibility of backing up your site content and making sure that it is accessible to those with disabilities.)

1. The Office of Web Systems Development being looked upon as a training facility for inexperienced and non-trained site publishers. We are responsible for technical support, not training
2. Site Publishers abusing storage space by not removing unused files and outdated information, forgetting passwords and changing over site publishing responsibilities to someone else without notifying the Office of Web Systems Development. The person requesting an account (username and password) will be held responsible for that account.
3. Sites not being checked for spelling and/or grammar errors

We request your continued support and cooperation, and that we work together to develop a more manageable web with a visitor-friendly experience

The Web Systems Development Team

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