The James Earl Carter Library at
Georgia Southwestern Stae University (GSW) uses a Content Management System
(CMS) for its website and other purposes. I spoke with Director of University
Relations Stephen Snyder for this interview. At the time the university was
deciding what CMS it wanted to use, Snyder was responsible for the selection.
JW: (John Wilson): How
and where did you hear about CMS?
SS: (Stephen Snyder):
Recognizing the need for improved Web management and functionality, the GSW
University Relations Office and the Office of Instructional and Informational
Technology began vetting Content Management Systems three or four years ago.
JW: What were their
motivations to adopt CMS for its current use?
SS: GSW needed an end
user-friendly system that allowed faculty and staff to make updates without
prior coding knowledge. Also, improved site management and the ability to make
broad changes across the site simultaneously was very important.
JW: What were your
decision making criteria and what is the name of CMS you are using now?
SS: Cost and system
capabilities. The name of the System is CM1 by Percussion Software.
JW: What are the
important benefits or advantages of the CMS you are using now over the old
system or another CMS system you’ve used in the past?
SS: The differences
are night and day. With the old system each piece of content had to be modified
on every single page. Now, changes can be made across the site instantaneously
inside the navigation structure. Without requirement of programming, end users
can easily perform web content managing jobs.
JW: How was the
learning curve?
SS: Individual training is necessary. For people who have advanced knowledge or who already have familiarity with the system, no further training will be needed, system using tips are enough
*
After conducting this interview, I
decided to also look into WebCT, which is something many universities in Georgia are
familiar with and what the GSW Library uses to teach several online classes. I
spoke with Royce Hackett, Director/Chief Information Officer of Informational
and Instructional Technology.
JW: (John Wilson): How and where did you hear about CMS?
RH
(Royce Hackett): GSW began looking into online content manager
systems in the late 1990s, approximately 1998. As the institution began
offering online courses. Content Management Systems were looked at in order to
be able to facilitate the process whereby the faculty member could upload
course content into a website for online instruction without a lot of overhead
for the faculty member. At that time, the Board of Regents was offering
seminars, essentially located in Macon, which
allowed the institutions to go to Macon
and learn about the different content management systems at that time. Three of
the content management systems that were looked at in the late 1990s were Web CT, Top Class,
and Web course in a Box. The decision was made by Georgia
Southwestern State
University to go with WebCT, based
upon the input that was given by the Board of Regents in Macon in 1998.
JW: What were their
motivations to adopt CMS for its current use?
RH: The decision to adopt the
content management system for online course instruction was to empower faculty
members to put up powerful web course content and interactive content with very
little expertise, giving them the ability to create web pages. A faculty member
cannot spend all their time designing websites. They need to be able to quickly
put their existing content up into the web course. So, by the utilization of a
content management system, it simply becomes a point and click environment for
the faculty member to upload there content, syllabus, assignments, quizzes and
tests into an interactive website by clicking upload buttons and utilizing the
tools in the content management system.
JW: What were your
decision making criteria and what is the name of CMS you are using now?
RH: The
decision making criteria was to attempt to use the content management system
that was recommended by the Board of Regents so that the 35 institutions in the
University System of Georgia could leverage their buying power and obtain one
content management system for the entire university system. The decision was
made by the Board of Regents for the institutions in the university system to
go with WebCT. Starting in 2001, most of the institutions in the university
system moved to WebCT as the desired platform for the content management
system. Sometime in the mid-2000s, WebCT was purchased by Blackboard. This
caused the entire university system to move to the Blackboard Content
Management System. That is the system that is currently employed by the
university system of Georgia.
The instance of that Blackboard learning environment is called Georgia View.
Georgia View is employed by most of the institutions in the USG.
JW: What are the
important benefits or advantages of the CMS you are using now over the old
system or another CMS system you’ve used in the past?
RH: The
original content management system that we used in the past was WebCT. The version
of WebCT we used was a locally hosted version, which ran on a server that was
on our campus. This system had limited power and limited resources in the
ability to expand and offer a lot of online classes. It was limited in its
ability for the faculty member to back up their course content material. It was
basically underpowered for what we were trying to do as we expanded our
university online offerings. When GSW moved to the version of Blackboard, that
version of Blackboard was hosted by the USG. That was run on an extremely large
set of servers in Athens
and is the current version we’re running now. It’s a Blackboard system called
Georgia View. By being hosted in Athens,
they are able to give much more power to the system. We were able to expand our
online offerings, have more enhanced backup capabilities, and more space to be
able to offer enriched content such as Multimedia Video and audio types of
content.
JW: How was the
learning curve?
RH: The
learning curve is different for different people. We found that there are a
wealth of online materials that would be offered to the faculty members to
learn how to utilize the management system. A lot of it had to do with how
motivated the individual was to learn the system. A motivated faculty member
taking full advantage of the online learning resources can become fairly
proficient in the current content management system employed by GSW with about
a week’s worth of work. So about anywhere from 20-40 hours study will be
required.
*
Reflection
From the thoughtful answers both Stephen and Royce supplied,
it's easy to see that one of the reasons behind acquiring a CMS in both cases
was ease of use. Faculty members who were not very trained needed something
they could figure out fairly easily. Both departments made selections on cost.
The CMS also provided flexibility, attractive designs and the learning curve
was not very steep. Both department heads noted the difference between the old
and the new, with the new being easy to update and having more power and
capabilities for enriched content. I appreciate both Stephen and Royce for
taking the time to interview with me. They've helped me out a lot in seeing the
benefits of what GSW currently offers.
