London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan, one of Britain's largest Universities, was formed in 2002 by a merger between the University of North London and London Guildhall University. It is one of England's leading providers of undergraduate, postgraduate, professional and vocational learning with over 30,000 students and 4,000 staff. Operating from two central London campuses, the University maintains extensive links with business and all students are offered work placements as part of their course.
"Voted best UK University website"*
URL - www.londonmet.ac.uk
Business Challenges
Implement a scalable, flexible system with the openness to link with back office systems and front end delivery devices. Achieve speedy deployment.
Solution
Shado CMS Content Management System.
Business Benefits
Speed of deployment ensured deadlines met and budgets complied with.
Facts & Figures
Employees - 4000
Project Duration – 4 week implementation
Web application language - ColdFusion MX
Database - Oracle
Platform - Linux RedHat 7.3
Challenge
"We needed to provide the capabilities for the website now and in the future. A key element was the use of Shado CMS and its ability to separate design from content. Another key factor was the flexibility and openness the technology provides for linking to disparate back-office systems and front-end delivery devices. Finally, the speed of development meant that very tight deadlines were met."
Tim Jenkins, MD, Straker Interactive UK
Historically the University's website relied on a distributed publishing model with more than 150 people providing content. This system was fundamentally inefficient as the University's web team needed to work constantly to support these providers. The merging of the two Universities amplified many of these problems.
It was decided that the new University's site needed to be built from the ground up. With extremely tight timescales - just six weeks to identify and select a suitable content management system and four weeks to implement it, Shado CMS from Straker Interactive was selected.
Solution
Shado CMS Content Management System.
Key considerations in choosing Shado CMS was the proven robustness and scalability of ColdFusion (Shado's underlying architecture), ease of management and ease of use, with excellent documentation and tight integration with desktop development tools like Adobe Dreamweaver MX. The solution also had to integrate smoothly with the University's Linux Redhat platform. The University already had five years experience with Adobe's ColdFusion application servers and decided that ColdFusion MX was the ideal choice. Working with IT consultants Highlander, a leading Adobe partner, the University chose Straker Interactive's Shado CMS.
Results
"In retrospect the timescale was absurd, but we met those deadlines because the ColdFusion MX and Shado CMS systems were easy to use. We had partner support from Straker Interactive and Highlander whenever we needed it."
Mike O'Reilly, Intranet Services Manager, London Met
After the designs were completed the site was developed and deployed in two weeks.
"Having all the designs in place first was a major benefit in the speed of deployment for this project." said Tim Jenkins MD, Straker Interactive UK. "Also through experience we have learnt that staging the project into phases creates the most successful implementations. Many organizations try to complete the whole project in one go and this invariably leads to problems."
The use of ColdFusion enabled the University's team to "hit the ground running" and achieve a very quick turnaround in the implementation phase. The integration of ColdFusion MX, Dreamweaver MX and Linux worked beautifully. Shado CMS on ColdFusion MX allows the University to consider web services, which in turn will enable integration with other internal applications. Using Dreamweaver MX's remote access features allowed the University team to work remotely and keep project timescales on track.
