About the WCMS
Web Content Management Systems (WCMS) greatly improve the way that websites are created, updated and maintained, allowing users to manage content via a web interface.
Northwestern University's Global Marketing and Communications web team selected Cascade CMS in 2009. The platform has the following benefits:
- Powerful commercial content management system widely used in higher-ed, under active development with responsive support
- Widely adopted across most Northwestern schools and departments (currently 800+ sites, 2900+ users)
- Allows administrators to use existing branded templates or create their own design variations
- Operates as a service to other university schools, departments, and centers that have skilled developers
- Allows editors to manage their own content through web-based wysiwyg editor, granular permissions and optional workflows
- Built-in multilingual support, content freshness and broken link reports, spelling and accessibility checks
- SiteImprove and Single Sign-On integration
- Managed and paid for by OGMC, hosted in IT data centers
- OGMC staff provides user support and training
Who is involved right now?
- Global Marketing and Communications
- Northwestern Information Technology
- Office for Research
- Student Affairs
- Feinberg School of Medicine
- McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
- Medill
- Northwestern Law
- Northwestern University in Qatar
- School of Communication
- The School of Education and Social Policy
- School of Professional Studies
- The Graduate School
- Weinberg College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
How can I be involved?
There are two ways to use the Northwestern University WCMS:
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Through a site redesign/project initiation with Global Marketing and Communications
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Through service-level usage (where your developers or consultants are working within the system to build your site)
How much does it cost?
Global Marketing and Communications provides central funding for Cascade licensing and support, providing the service free of charge to Northwestern units.
Community Response
Here are some comments that contributors have left on our evaluation survey.
"The system is flexible, user friendly, and takes the guesswork out of publishing. I like how easy it is to create links within pages and make edits. The more you work in the system, the easier things become."
"Great tool to work with. Great support from WebComm."
"This system is very intuitive and with just a small amount of customization to creating an effective workflow for our inter-departmental work, our contributors have grasped working within the environment very quickly."
"The workflow option is essential in establishing business process and accountability for compliancy with our Web site guidelines."
"How logical Cascade's menu / folder system is and how easy it is to edit and publish. And what great support WebComm provides; no consultant for hire could match."
"Compared to other systems that I've used, Cascade is a dream. It's very responsive, user-friendly and reliable."
More questions? Please visit our contact page to send us a message or request a meeting."Cascade has greatly simplified the publication of our online version of the magazine. It has saved us time and money. We love it."