The Guildford College Group have relaunched their entire public web presence with the simultaneous launch of 6 sites using the Contensis web content management system.
The college originally selected Contensis in 2007. They were aware that the college was likely to grow and develop, and required a CMS that would scale up with them, as it is now doing. The sites also make full use of the powerful asset-sharing features that Contensis has to offer, including shared templates, content, multimedia, and functionality such as the integrated Course Search and News.
Guildford College engaged the Contensis Professional Services team to implement the new sites and working together we have successfully delivered them on time and within budget.
Guildford College Web Services Manager, Brian Lake, said “Our goal was to establish our new brand, with three constituent colleges and three speciality sites under the Guildford College Group. Contensis proposed a sensible solution that allowed us to uniquely brand each site, while combining them under a single Content Management System. This gives us a system in which staff can edit content and use it on multiple sites.
The websites involved in the relaunch are:-
Staff from both organisations have worked closely together on the re-development project to ensure a successful outcome well before the start of the busy enrolment season. Once the champagne corks had been cleared up, the Guildford College web team sent us a message...
“We just wanted to say a BIG thank you to you and your team for all the hard work you’ve put in over the last months. The websites look really good and our staff and students should be really happy.”
As part of the relaunch project, Guildford College also took the opportunity to upgrade to the latest Contensis version - Release 7.0. Like the rest of the project, the upgrade ran very smoothly and to plan. Version 7.0 includes many new features including:-
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New dashboard with Live Feed
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New Form Builder
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Quality Assurance upgrade to WCAG 2.0
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Browser Support for Internet Explorer 9
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New social media controls
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Approve and decline content from your Inbox
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Support for multiple Active Directory domains
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Extensions to Contensis search
Guildford College made particular use of the latest Contensis Forms module in their sites. This new version improves the user experience of form creation, by reducing the amount of time and effort required to produce fully accessible, web standard forms. The intuitive interface allows users to drag and drop fields, apply settings and create help, all through the familiar WYSIWYG editor.
Looking at the overall project and their experience of working together with Contensis, Brian Lake’s view was that “Contensis were adaptable, helpful, and in a nutshell - good partners to work with. They offer what is rare in a development partner, the ability to engage in constructive back and forth as issues are resolved. Our programmers and theirs worked collaboratively in identifying problems and fixing them, and they stayed on the case until the problem was solved – no exceptions.”
In a related development, the college have recently won an “Advanced Innovation Award” for The iGuildford Project: Expanding Mobile Learning in Further/Higher Education Through Mobile App Development. This is the first iPhone Application developed by any college in the country and Contensis exposes content in just the right way to be re-used in such mobile apps. Congratulations to all the team at Guildford College.