Outstanding Customer Service Improvement Initiative Award

Outstanding Process Improvement Award

Date: July 3, 2009

Name of Improvement Initiative: Content Management System Roll-out

Individual or Team responsible for this initiative: OIT Web Technologies, Enterprise Information Systems

Pamela Joseph, OIT, Web Technologies,Asst Director

Andrew Sledge, OIT, Web Technologies, Web Developer

Steve Blutstein, OIT, Web Technologies, Web Developer

Tracy Adkins, OIT, Instructional Technology, Asst Director (Training)

Rosemary Jean-Louis, Marketing & Public Relations, Web Content Coordinator

Name(key contact): Pam Joseph

Phone number: 678-891-3464

Email address:

Institution: Georgia Perimeter College

Supervisor information:

First name: Marisa Greenlee

Phone number: 678-891-1982

Email address:

The Process Improvement addresses the following University System of Georgia (USG) and Georgia Perimeter College (GPC) Strategic Plan goals

• USG Goal One: Renew excellence in undergraduate education to meet students’ 21st century educational needs.
• USG Goal Two: Create enrollment capacity to meet the needs of 100,000 additional students by 2020.
• USG Goal Five: Maintain affordability so that money is not a barrier to participation in the benefits of higher education.

• GPC Goal: We will strengthen student success.
• GPC Goal: We will enhance the economic, social and cultural vitality of our communities.

Drupal – Open Source Content Management System deployment

Georgia Perimeter College is the third largest institution in the University System of Georgia and one of the fastest growing two-year colleges with a student population of more than 23,000 students and over 2,000 employees. Because the college’s website is a vital source of information for those 25,000+ customers and serves as the college’s face to prospective students and the world, keeping the web pages and content updated is critical. The Office of Information Technology deployed an open-source (source code that is open to the public) content management system (Drupal) and moved all of the institutional web content into this tool to facilitate that update process. Many institutions have considered doing this, but few have.

Before the improvement, updating the college’s website required that only skilled, trained web developers who understood HTML development could update the content of the website. By deploying the new content management solution, any person who can create an MS Word document can contribute content. The system also supports an electronic approval workflow that allows individuals in the approval process to review and approve content before it is published to the web. This improvement provides college departments with closer ownership and responsibility for keeping their web pages’ accurate.

The content management improvement also has the following benefits . . .

• Delivers accurate, up-to-date, and consistent content, design, and navigation throughout the website
• Standardizes update controls and guidelines for webpages
• Provides an online media gallery to select approved photographs for webpages
• Assures GPC that Google won’t be able to access old files during search – prevents outdated information from displaying
• Provides a standardized URL protocol – all webpages begin with “

. . . with the following savings:

• The less time that a service representative spends on updating their website, the more time they can spend providing service to our students. Satisfied students result in higher enrollments, thus additional revenue.
• Most commercial content management system software solutions exceed $125,000, with continued yearly maintenance/upgrade fees. By implementing an open-source solution, this has saved GPC the expense of software and continued maintenance fees.
• Updating a web page using the previous FrontPage / FTP method was cumbersome and confusing that often required assistance of OIT training specialists, instructional technologists, and the OIT service desk. The FTP process resulted in many lost files that necessitated the web sites to be restored from backup tapes. The new CMS system uses a web-based form to maintain website content. Updating a web page is accomplished by a simple press of a button. There is no need for FTP files, no unintentional loss of files, and no restoring from backups. Savings in personnel hours are realized by the functional office due to less time spent in the updating process and by the OIT support groups.
• Drupal is compatible with the college’s previous web server software so no new hardware or software was needed for implementation which saved an estimated $5,000.
• Increase in productivity.

GPC’s website may be the college’s first introduction to a potential student, a potential donor, or the public and further interaction or support is affected by that first impression. GPC’s website also serves as a vital source of information for its current students and staff. For its online students, GPC’s website isthe classroom. The Office of Information Technology with its innovative and cost-effective content management system has ensured that Georgia Perimeter College’s website is providing an accurate, relevant, and supportive resource for its current and potential customers.

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