Project:
Content Management System

Development team:
Sharon Turner, Scott Murdock, Ken. M. Wilson, et al

Project Description:
To date this has been Syphon's most involved project. Syphon played an integral role from as early as the pre-planning stages and saw it all the way through beyond deployment where we now provide routine maintenance and the occasional new feature.

When William Jewell College needed a new web site they decided to break the cycle of creating standard web sites that are difficult to maintain and quickly go stale by investing in an undertaking to build a new system from scratch that would last them for many years. Syphon was brought in while this was all still just an idea and we immediately set to work. Syphon made hardware and software recommendations, then once the pieces were purchased we built and configured the server and installed all of the necessary software on it.

The next phase was the creation of a Content Management System (CMS) designed specifically to meet the needs of a college web. We designed a system that allocates responsibilities for maintaining online content to the individual departments while retaining a central clearinghouse to approve content and maintain a strict design standard. The CMS includes the ability to manage any number of web sites from the same interface and to work with shared network drives allowing sites to be distributed throughout the network. In addition the uniform design standards are completely configurable, so the school is able to change the look of its site at any time without any massive overhaul.

Included with the CMS we also developed a number of additional components, such as a banner ad management/rotation system, a search interface, a press release management system, event listings, a student profile tool, and a student application status look-up interface that ties in to a separate database elsewhere on campus. We even reprogrammed two third-party applications to tie in with everything else so that all of the features could use the same usernames and passwords.

We capped it all off with a 100+ page instruction manual complete with full-color illustrations that details step-by-step how to perform each and every task the CMS is capable of.

Excuse us while we catch our breath...


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