A Web Renovation

Using Content Management to Strengthen Rider University’s Community and Brand Identity

by Lara LaPosa, Rider University

Orginally created for eSchool News

Today,colleges and universities know that to find any type of information, whether it’s an educational institution, a research paper or a movie time, students turn to the Internet.  Recognizing that Web sites are truly every organization’s public face, Rider University decided that its Web site would be the best avenue for accomplishing a diverse set of goals, including remaining competitive in the crowded northeast region, strengthening its brand identity and attracting new applicants. After a comprehensive search for technology partner capable of achieving its key objectives, Rider selected Open Text Web Solutions.

Rider University has two New Jersey campuses in Lawrenceville and Princeton, and enrolls more than 5,500 graduate and undergraduate students.  After its initial evaluation of its Web site and time consuming Web content contribution processes, the university realized it needed to purchase a Web content management solution that would transform its Web-publishing process to create a site that was more attractive to prospective applicants and was easier to keep up-to-date.  One of the primary goals was to increase the number of applications submitted via the Web site by making the process extremely easy and efficient.

Rider officials searched for a Web content management solution that contained the applications and capabilities necessary to achieve its goals.  This included empowering all essential university adminitstrative staff, like admissions and faculty - in addition to IT staff - to create and manage Web content, which meant Rider needed a product that did not require knowledge of HTML to be used. The university also wanted a solution that would permit separate management of Web design and content, as well as a Web-publishing workflow that would provide specific publishing access rights to authenticated Web authors and managers. After comparing several Web content management solutions, Rider University chose Open Text Web Solutions, whose CMS product offered the easiest-to-use set of capabilities In particular, Rider leveraged Open Text Web Solutions to develop a compelling look and feel to the Web site that cleanly communicated the university’s recently established brand identity.

“In order to reach the goals set for the redesigned Web site, we knew it was imperative that faculty and university staff were able to make changes to their content without having to go through significant training or authorization bottlenecks,” said Tara Laposa, Director of Internet Projects at Rider University.  “Thanks to Open Text Web Solutions, our faculty,staff and students own their content, which has helped us create a stronger sense of community and overall public presence for the university, on and off the Web.”

Open Text Web Solutions also enabled the university to develop a unique, highly creative and interactive Extranet, a private network that can share business information with authorized site visitors, to clearly showcase the salient features and benefits of the university and its community.  In addition, the university was able to easily migrate new and existing content to the new Web site and intranet, an internal network accessed only by university employees.

From a technical standpoint, Open Text Web Solutions enabled Rider to create an online environment that can support live and interactive university experiences for site visitors via technologies including streaming video, Flash, QTVR, Java applets and JavaScript.  The university also configured publishing access rights for authorized users, while parsing out the tasks of design and content creation for the Web site, Extranet and intranet.

It also allowed Rider to easily measure results by tracking site visits, page views and user trails. In the first three months of installing Open Text Web Solutions, the university saw significant results, which initially included a five percent increase in the number of inquiries from the new Web site, as well as an eight percent increase in the number of student applications submitted through the site.

From a qualitative standpoint, Rider also created a faster, more productive workflow that grants authenticated access to authors and staff.  Since launching the CMS internally, Web site content has been updated more frequently, in part because users find the product easy to use and are now able to update content without having to get on a waiting list.

Before completing the implementation of Open Text Web Solutions, Rider was concerned that converting staff onto the new content management system (CMS) would challenge its culture and sense of employee project ownership. However, since separating the workflow between design and content, Rider officials found that its employees actually have gained a heightened sense of ownership for the Web site and their respective sections.