Adobe® Marketing Cloud Success Story
Simon Fraser University
One university, hundreds of websites
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia
www.sfu.ca
Top Canadian university uses Adobe Experience Manager to
improve its reputation and recruitment on the web through
engaging, consistent online experiences
Ranked by national surveys as one of Canada’s top three comprehensive universities
for almost 20 years, Simon Fraser University (SFU) offers more than 100 undergraduate
major programs and more than 45 graduate offerings. Staff from eight faculties teach
at three campuses in British Columbia: Burnaby, Vancouver, and Surrey.
SFU relies on its web presence to support recruitment efforts and enhance its reputation. The
university’s web sites provide information to many audiences: parents and prospective students;
current students and alumni; and university administration and faculty.
Across SFU and throughout its network of partners, web content creators of varying skill levels are
publishing to more than 1,600 web sites. Large departments, such as student services, have full-time
professional web authors, while smaller departments might assign one employee or even a graduate
student to update content on a part-time basis.
“When you have so many people working on websites, it’s hard to get the consistency that’s vital to our
branding and reputation,” says Frances Atkinson, director of institutional, collaborative, and academic
technologies at SFU. Atkinson is responsible for the technologies that power the university’s core sites,
including the main pages for faculty, schools, departments, as well as 200 related sites.
Using Adobe Experience Manager, SFU can unleash the enthusiasm and knowledge of its
many web content authors—and still achieve branded, professional-looking results.
“With Adobe Experience Manager
we can design templates that
cascade through all the sites,
making it easy for web authors to
update content—improving the
experience for our site visitors with
timely, high-quality, and consistent
content across all of the websites.”
Frances Atkinson
Director of Institutional, Collaborative,
and Academic Technologies,
Simon Fraser University
Challenge
• Improve consistent branding across
hundreds of SFU websites to enhance
experience for site visitors
Improved brand consistency
• Adopt a more controlled, centralized
approach to web content authoring
to improve creation and publishing
of relevant content
• Implement social media capabilities
within main website to reduce
audiences leaving site for social
interactions
• Support reuse and integration of
content across sites
SFU selected Adobe Marketing Cloud, including the Adobe Experience Manager solution, to replace the
existing homegrown templates. The more centralized approach fostered a new level of professionalism,
consistency, and ease of use. “With Adobe Experience Manager we can design templates that cascade
through all the sites, making it easy for web authors to update content—improving the experience for
our site visitors with timely, high-quality, and consistent content across all of the websites,” explains
Atkinson. “We also can enhance our sites with mobile and social media to reach more audiences in
ways that appeal most to them.”
Solution
SFU is using Adobe Marketing Cloud,
including the Adobe Experience
Manager solution, to streamline
creation and maintenance of websites
that engage students and other
communities and strengthen the
university’s brand and reputation.
Benefits
• Created consistent branding across
all university websites
• Improved content creation,
management, and publishing for
departments across campus
• Enhanced university reputation
with consistent, engaging web
experiences
• Enabled integration with business
systems to streamline distribution
of information
To maintain consistency, a university group created website templates and distributed them to web
content authors. However, the templates were difficult to use and quickly became outdated.
SFU evaluated a dozen web content management solutions before deciding to use Adobe Experience
Manager. Experience Manager provided a centralized content management platform, enabling the IT
team to create several intuitive templates that web content creators could use to quickly and reliably
update online content in minutes.
Streamlined web content management
To help harness the full potential of Adobe Experience Manager, Atkinson worked with a designer
to create templates and trained 12 developers on her team in building apps. The early work was a
complete success, and within the first six months, the number of trained content authors increased
from 12 in IT to 150 across the university, with new, authorized content contributors being trained
almost daily.
SFU leverages Adobe Experience Manager, including web content management, digital asset
management, social communities, and mobile capabilities, to support more cost-effective,
coordinated updating of web content across the university. For example, staff in the university
president’s office maintain a regular “Envision SFU” blog, and events calendars are easily kept
current by staff across departments.
“Adobe Experience Manager provides a growing number of content contributors—including more
than 150 of them today—with an easy-to-use platform that fosters their creativity while helping
ensure we always deliver professional, SFU-branded experiences on all our web pages,” says Atkinson.
Integration between the university’s business applications and Adobe Experience
Manager helps ensure that important administrative information is kept updated and
consistent as quickly and cost effectively as possible across hundreds of websites.
“Adobe Experience Manager enables
us to scale up—not just to the number
of users, but also to the creativity of SFU
faculty and students—while maintaining
a consistent web presence, supporting
recruiting and further strengthening our
reputation for excellence.”
Frances Atkinson
Director of Institutional, Collaborative,
and Academic Technologies,
Simon Fraser University
Toolkit
Polished, branded experiences
Adobe Marketing Cloud, including
the Adobe Experience Manager
solution. Capabilities used include:
As a result of using Adobe Experience Manager, the university’s website delivers many benefits to
content contributors and visitors. Every department—including Student Services, the President’s Office,
Academic Advising, and Admissions—now has easy access to a centralized library of updated, branded
content, and online visitors benefit from a consistent, more engaging experience.
•Web content management
•Digital asset management
•Social communities
•Mobile
“Our content authors are working at least three times faster,” explains Atkinson. “Plus, they’re enjoying it
more than ever. For larger groups, such as Public Affairs and Student Services, a transition to a new
system can take a lot of effort, but they are among our biggest supporters. They’ve seen the marked
benefits of using Adobe Experience Manager and are extremely enthusiastic about the solution.”
A bridge between the past and the future
SFU expects the new website capabilities will enhance and extend connections within the university
community and beyond. For example, when reporters approach the university for an expert on a topic,
the website now has an app showing SFU faculty and their areas of expertise, giving reporters rapid
access to experts and making it easier to contact the appropriate person, and subsequently enhancing
the university’s image as a thought leader.
Beyond ongoing updating of rich online content, SFU is looking to extend Adobe Experience Manager to
support electronic payment processing, provide access to content via tablets and mobile devices, and to
provide students and faculty overall with more web services supporting everyday university processes.
SFU has selected mobile capabilities in Experience Manager that will provide access to university content
across the multitude of devices available for the mobile web.
For more information
www.adobe.com/solutions/
digital-marketing.html
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
USA
www.adobe.com
“At SFU, virtually any faculty or student could eventually author content for our online pages,” says
Atkinson. “Adobe Experience Manager enables us to scale up—not just to the number of users, but also
to the creativity of SFU faculty and students—while maintaining a consistent web presence, supporting
recruiting and further strengthening our reputation for excellence.”
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