replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Nathan Angell and Wende Morgaine

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Background Based on our experience serving as decision-makers and implementers in several key university technology choice processes –Course management, eportfolio, web content management, digital repository, portal, identity management, events management –Based on case studies at Portland State University, corroborated by experience at various universities Lessons learned could be applied to any technology choice

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus How Not to Choose How are candidates chosen? How will you choose between the chosen candidates? –The functional requirements checklist approach Proprietary functionality promises are suspect For open source systems, no salesperson will call and it can be difficult to find current functional information –The sandbox approach Not a real field test –The piloting approach Apples vs oranges Should be a dress rehearsal –Survey results not helpful

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Driven by Institutional Vision, Goals, Mission Purely functional criteria for choice are often disguised personal or political preferences rather than being strategically motivated Technology will not choose itself; there will be no obvious choice, but rather tradeoffs. Given that there is no ideal choice—no perfect tool—what criteria will you use to choose? Given that neither the technology itself nor personal viewpoints will lead to a good choice, the only long-term justification for choice will be vision/mission/goals alignment

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Technology Alignment Include institutional technology preference criteria in your selection process –Proprietary vs. Open Source –Hardware –Operating Systems –Application Layer –Database

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Process Establish selection process first –Documented –Communicated –Transparent Align process with institutional timing needs. Don’t let vendors drive your process timeline. Vision-driven selection committee

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Communication is Key Participants in the process Stakeholders End-users (faculty, students, staff)

replant technology How to Choose the Right CMS For Your Campus Questions? replanttechnology.com