August 2006 — Features
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Content Management: If You Build It Right, They Will Come
Enter Savvy Software, out of Portsmouth, NH. Bill Savoie, company president, says the company’s content management system doesn’t have “bells and whistles, but most schools don’t need bells and whistles.” The interface of Savvy’s text editor looks like Microsoft Word. You can update your content, construct and use calendars, and put up PDFs. The entire system can be set up in three weeks. Users know which events are happening, where, and when, even in cases of last-minute scheduling changes.
If you want the parents to be involved, you have to treat them in a respectful way and provide them the information they need when they want it. A colored sheet of paper sent home is not communication.Bill Shamblin, Newport Independent Schools
Asselin began incorporating Savvy into the Windham school system in July 2004. By the beginning of the school year, the changes were in place and the site was ready. What’s different? Before, there were five people entering data; at last count, there are now 234. Secretaries are empowered to put newsletters online. High school clubs manage their own section of the site. Last year’s state conference on “Technology and the Law” featured a seminar on school technology that used Windham’s website as an example of what kind of content to publish. Now, says Asselin, everyone wants a web page; he gets constant requests from groups such as the Boy Scouts and the PTA to set up their own pages on the system. Asselin remembers when the Windham community members were unaware of upcoming events. He says that now “they can click on when an event is taking place and even find out how to get there. People are relying on it. The parents love it.”
Elaine Herzig, a parent of three children in two Windham schools as well as a PTA board member, says she uses the site to check school calendars, information on bus routes, staff listings, updates on school issues, the new transportation policy, teachers’ classroom reports, and links to the community.
Content management systems aren’t particularly complicated. James Robertson, the managing director of Step Two Designs, a content management consultancy based in Australia, defined the term in an article written for Atlantic Webfitters:
“A content management system (CMS) supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate information. It covers the complete lifecycle of the pages on your site, from providing simple tools to create the content, through to publishing, and finally to archiving.
“It also provides the ability to manage the structure of the site, the appearance of the published pages, and the navigation provided to the users.”
