Content Creation Everyone Can Do
Content creation is very important for Roanoke College, with video being a key way to engage with prospective students and current students and Santoroski said that any time they can do a video they will. It enables them to replicate what it's going to be like, attending the college, and it helps get past the marketing speak. They also encourage user generated videos, often holding contests for the best video. He said it's much more authentic and they get a much better response.
Every department within the college has its own content authors to manage the content on Inside Roanoke, including HR, Mail Services, and Building and Grounds. Ingeniux provides a visual page building tool called Page Builder which many authors use. Santoroski trains users on Ingeniux, and he said Page Builder's ease of use is great for teaching new people. However, there are others who like getting into the HTML, and he likes that Ingeniux provides the flexibility to manage content and design the way you want.
Another thing that stood out for Santoroski with the redesign on the latest version of Ingeniux was the move from XLST to .Net. He said it was a huge improvement, making it faster and easier to do things. He said the way templates are handled also improved and overall the CMS is much more user-friendly for everyone, including nontechnical people.
"One of the problems with a lot of CMSs is that they do a couple of things, but then you hit a point where you just can't go any further, and there's really nothing like that in Ingeniux."
While most content is open to everyone, content creators do have the option of marking a piece of content password protected (although Santoroski said it's rarely used).
Integration of external applications was also key during the development of Inside Roanoke. Applications such as the Dining Menu and the Announcement System were integrated, and their content pulled into the web experience.
An Open Approch to Student Engagement
Although Roanoke College has a long-term relationship with Ingeniux, in the last website redesign they did look at other options, they just didn't find anything better. Santoroski said they have done two full website redesigns on top of Ingeniux now and that is the ultimate test of a good CMS.
Santoroski said he has spent a lot of time thinking and talking about being more open. Roanoke College wants to reduce the barriers to getting content out to the prospective students that need it to make a decision, and to current students who want to know things as simple as what's on the menu today, to more complex things like what classes they need and when exams are planned.
It's not an approach that every higher education institution is taking; everyone is finding their own path. For Santoroski though, Roanoke College feels they are more ahead by setting up a high-quality CMS and letting people create and manage their content.
