Stellenbosch
University
Blazes a New Web Trail with
Microsoft SharePoint 2013
Stellenbosch University has become the first South African education institution to
implement a web portal based on Microsoft SharePoint 2013, with significant benefit.
Customer:
Stellenbosch University
Website:
www.sun.ac.za
Background
Established in 1866, Stellenbosch University – commonly known as Maties,
is one of South Africa’s oldest and most prestigious tertiary education facilities.
Country or Region:
South Africa
Industry:
I
Educational
Software and Services:
Microsoft SharePoint
With over 28 000 students and 3000 permanent staff members sprawled
across five campuses situated in the Western Cape’s celebrated winelands, Stellenbosch University is widely regarded as a world class scholarly destination.
Although the university boasts a history spanning several centuries, it has changed
considerably over the years to expand its course offerings and academic focal points. Today, Stellenbosch University offers degrees
in Arts and Social Sciences, Science, Education, AgriScience, Law,
Theology, Economic and Management Sciences and Engineering.
Courses focusing on Military Science, Health Sciences and Business Science are available at satellite campuses situated in Saldanha Bay, Tygerberg
and Bellville respectively.
Partner:
Intervate
Website:
www.intervate.com
Shar ePoint Case Study
Challenge
Solution
Historically, the marketing and communication
function at Stellenbosch University has fallen
under the remit of each faculty in its own capacity.
In late 2012, Stellenbosch University made contact with
Intervate – an award winning Microsoft Gold Partner, to
develop, design and launch a new public facing website
that would be based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010
technology. The intention behind this decision was
simple – to create a platform that would bring a newfound uniformity to the Stellenbosch University web
presence whilst allowing each campus to access and edit
information without the assistance of head office.
Although this approach afforded the university’s
respective functions the freedom required to pursue
internal and external promotion of initiatives, events
and lectures, it also resulted in the propagation
of multiple disparate web domains that lacked a
sense of uniformity.
Put simply, Stellenbosch University’s online presence
had begun to lose consistency. Over time,
this had begun to cause difficulty when
communicating or curating information at a base level.
In response, the university began to search for a provider and solution to tie its web presence together whilst
still affording each campus the independence
to communicate and market key messages.
After several discussions with Intervate, the university
agreed to deviate somewhat from its original approach
by choosing to build a web offering based on the newly
introduced Microsoft SharePoint 2013 platform.
Although Microsoft SharePoint 2013 offers several
benefits above its predecessor, SharePoint 2010, the
software had only recently entered the market and
experience was still relatively limited.
Despite this, Stellenbosch University and Intervate
endeavored to push forward, blazing a new trail
by becoming the first South African education facility
to introduce a web portal based on Microsoft
SharePoint 2013.
This decision was made in response to Microsoft SharePoint 2013’s new feature list – including
responsive design, advanced content management
and a newly introduced search engine facility.
In February 2013, Intervate commenced the
development of Stellenbosch University’s new
web portal. It was completed and introduced to the
public in April 2013.
Shar ePoint Case Study
Benefits
The
benefits
associated
with
Stellenbosch
University’s decision to develop a new web
portal based on Microsoft SharPoint 2013
have been significant, admits Lize Esterhuizen –
Head of e-Communication Development.
“Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is a wonderful platform
from the perspective that it allows each
faculty to simply and easily access content,
make updates and submit requests remotely while
still ensuring that a uniformity and commonality is applied to the university’s online presence”
“The
newly
improved
search
engine
update and content management system has
allowed us to introduce an approach where
each
faculty
submits
news
and
events
to be displayed and, once approved, these
are automatically routed to the relevant
portals according to level of importance. This
has significantly reduced the time and cost
associated with managing the process internally”.
Microsoft SharePoint 2013’s improved graphical
interface and ability to support a responsive
design architecture has also proven a significant
advantage to the university.
“Microsoft
SharePoint
2013’s
responsive
design allows the website to resize itself
according to the device it is being viewed
on. This ensures that the most important
information is always displayed and removes the need
for a separate mobile friendly development. Furthermore, the new graphical interface has made it easier for us to affect image changes or tweaks internally.
This will lead to reduced overheads in the long term”.
“This web content management project was
one of the first in South Africa on SharePoint
2013 and provides Intervate with a great opportunity
to work with the new features which will provide
us a distinct advantage in the market place for future
web content management projects in SharePoint 2013”,
concluded Kevin Pederson, Intervate Project Manager.
Shar ePoint Case Study