CORE Content Management System

Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education

Background

The Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE) is a nonprofit scientific society representing oceanographic research institutions, universities, laboratories, and aquaria. The CORE Web site had grown to hundreds of pages, and the size was weighing down its performance. Technical troubles plagued the site, which went down about every two weeks. Its navigation had grown awkward and its look had become dated.

At the same time, CORE had limited resources to maintain its website. It had only one staffer qualified to update content and wanted to expand its staff's ability to work on the site.

A critical point was its database, which kept records for the National Ocean Science Bowl (NOSB) on hundreds of participants from around the country. The database was accessible only to CORE staffers, despite the need of regional centers to access and update data.

Solution

Fulcrum proposed a plan to rebuild the site using the powerful content management tool Dev2Go. This tool permits editors to create, edit, and manage Web pages using a visual editor and ordinary language commands instead of HTML.

Results

Within two months, the site and its five subsites were rebuilt with a new look and feel that simplified navigation. Three new members-only sections were created.

The NOSB database was made public for the first time. Students, teachers, judges, and others were enabled to register online. The database was also architected so as to distribute this information only to the relevant regional centers and CORE staff.

Browser-based editing enabled CORE staff anywhere to update the site. This reduced labor and publishing time because staff no longer had to funnel their updates to a central HTML expert and content manager. However, access isn't uncontrolled. Because the system can restrict access to specific parts of the site, editors can maintain their own sections of the website without interference.

Special Achievements

During the conversion, CORE underwent significant turnover for unrelated reasons. Several people involved with the project at the start left the nonprofit before the new site went live. The simplicity of the Dev2Go tool and the thoroughness of training by the Business Solutions Division allowed CORE to expand its set of editors from one to four, two with administrative powers previously held only by its Webmaster. Since the site has gone live, CORE has reported that NOSB registrants continue to fill its rolls without a problem.