The Integration Challenge
Bringing Web Management
Systems Together
Eric Behrens
Swarthmore College
Web Archaeology
Archaeology … is the peeping Tom of the
sciences. It is the sandbox of men who care not
where they are going; they merely want to know
where everyone else has been.
--Jim Bishop
The <Angle Bracket> Age
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The creation of the initial hierarchy of
interrelated pages
Focused on content presentation/distribution
Essentially libertarian
Big challenges were user training, design, and
organizational buy-in.
Emblematic tool is the WYSIWYG HTML
editor
Emblematic product is a department home page
The Submit Button Age
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Scripting & dynamic content development
Focused on information transactions
Essentially bureaucratic/administrative
Big challenges were meeting client demand,
technical staff recruitment/retention, ROI,
scalability
• Emblematic tool is Cold Fusion
• Emblematic product is online registration
The Age of Industrialization
• Proliferation of commercial and open source
applications to manage and manipulate general or
specialized content databases on the web
• Answering scalability
• Essentially egalitarian
• Big challenges include funding, project
management, customization and integration
• Emblematic tool is Blackboard Learning System
(with developer API’s)
• Emblematic end-user project is a Blog
Blackboard, WebCT,
Sakai
Ingeniux,
RedDot, .NET
WWW
Presentation
Portal(s)
ContentDM,
Luna Insight,
DSpace
Course Management
Information
Management Systems
Content Management
Digital Asset Management
End-user Administrative Applications
Library Management
ERP
Directory Services
Scheduling
One-Card/
Commerce
Information
Infrastructure
The Challenges At Hand
Strategic Planning vs. Reactive Thinking
• Integration requires strategic planning
• Adapting to the flavors-of-the-month and
disruptive technologies
• Responding appropriately to distracting
ideas
• Importance vs. urgency
Communication
• Connecting projects to core mission(s) for
senior staff and other decision makers
• Few aware of full extent of project
relationships & interdependencies
• Disagreement, competition (What? Never.)
• Marketing: before or after implementation?
Staff
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Job splintering
Sharing the load
Alignment of the stars’ stars
Retention and/or knowledge transfer
Best of Breed vs. Single Vendor
• Maximizing the value of web management
systems
• Risk scenarios
– Vendor lock
– Customization lock
– Opportunity Cost
• The finality of product selection.
A Very Little Advice
• Strategic planning takes time
• Strategic planning takes place at and between
multiple layers of organization
• Our institutions rely on our stewardship
• A lot of small goods can equal excellence
• Wait for the Ideal? Speed/agility are also virtues
• Mind the store
Now for the pep talk…
Go, team, go!
Fight, Fight for the inner light,
Kill, Little Quakers, Kill!
-Traditional Swarthmore cheer