Straker tools aid varsity websites

Auckland and Massey universities are doing six-figure overhauls of their websites using content-management tools from Auckland software developer Straker Interactive.

Massey web content management project manager Raphael Coulon said the university wanted to manage all its administrative and research information with Straker's ShadoMX.

"Currently there is a mix of technologies and environments across different servers. We want to standardise how it will be maintained," Coulon said.

"ShadoMX adds workflow and allows us to manage risk and other factors about how stuff gets published."

That means calendar information will come from a central repository, rather than being generated in an ad hoc fashion.

"It will bring our web publication process in line with book publication. With web content there has not been the same rigour."

The university will continue to use Web CT to put course material online, and individual lecturers will still be able to develop their own sites with specialised resources for their students.

Straker is not interested in turning ShadoMX into an online learning product, Coulon said.

The university is also reviewing the type of content it posts and the way it is organised.

It will no longer be based on departments but on the type of audience and those audiences access the information.

Auckland University web manager Richard Atkins said ShadoMX content management should increase the value students and staff get from the web.

"The key thing is to put the power of creating web pages in the hands of the people with the knowledge, even if they don't know HTML or web scripting languages," Atkins said.

"ShadoMX also works well in a large distributed environment, which is what we have here."

The university's website is home to more than 100,000 pages, many of them put up by faculties and tutors.

Atkins said ShadoMX would be be used by the university administration, but could pick up other faculties when their systems needed to be replaced. It replaces a content-management system built by Straker years ago. "The old system was not as user friendly. ShadoMX also gives us the ability to build online forms, which is in demand around the university for organising seminars and events."

Auckland developed its own application, Cecil, for delivering lessons and tests over the web.

It also uses PeopleSoft Portal to access its student management and human resources systems.

Atkins says ShadoMX will integrate with those systems. "There will be instances where we will need to pass PeopleSoft data to the content manager." The university expects a return on its investment through more use of systems and improvement in the quality of web material.

Straker technology chief Grant Straker said the company was concentrating on the tourism and education sectors, as well as winning business among corporates such as Placemakers and Cavalier Bremworth.

"Universities have been screaming out for a document factory which allows them to have a prospectus online as an XML document people can print out," Straker said.

"All the information is somewhere in the university system. By using the web to collaborate, they can generate those sorts of documents and print to Quark or pdf."

Web makeovers

* ShadoMX will be used to manage all Massey University's administrative and research information.

* The university is seeking the same rigour in web publishing as in print.

* Auckland University's administration department is deploying ShadoMX.

* It replaces an earlier Straker-developed system.

www.straker.co.nz