Magnolia CMS
Higher Education and Research
Most higher education and research institutions are defined by decentralized and independent academic and administrative units, yet face a need to present a coherent, effective marketing presence to their current and prospective customers.
Widely scattered and large amounts of buried content are common challenges for today's institutions. So with increasing online demand and limited budgets to meet the requirements, how can Magnolia CMS help?
Benefits of Magnolia CMS solutions for higher education and research institutions
Automation of content management
Historically, web content has consisted of static pages of HTML, requiring programming experience and manual updating of content and design. Magnolia CMS significantly reduces this overhead by removing the complexities of HTML and automating the management of content.
Decentralization of content responsiiblity and ownership
The Web Manager has often been a critical bottleneck in the timely publication and ongoing maintenance of web content. Magnolia CMS distributes content management responsibilities to individuals throughout the institution, giving them the authority and tools to maintain content themselves, without any knowledge of HTML, graphic design, or web publishing.
Automated workflow management
Magnolia CMS enables proven workflows for even the most demanding of global enterprises. Individuals from different teams can independently create, approve, and publish content. Developers can even update the site while Content Managers continue to add content. The workflow also ensures that content is adequately reviewed and approved before publication.
Easy legacy integration with open standards
Access to the source code of Magnolia CMS makes the software easy to customize to specific needs. Additionally, Magnolia is based on the Java platform, which has traditionally been the platform of choice in large organizations because it combines high flexibility with maximum reliability.
Avoid data loss and security leaks
The open-source development model has time and again proven that it breads highly secure software when compared with proprietary alternatives. Magnolia CMS is one of the best architectured and written Java applications in this respect.
Web-form-based content administration
Magnolia CMS allows all content administration within a standard web browser. Proprietary software and specialized expertise (such as HTML) are not required of content managers. Users can simply copy and paste existing content.
Separate content from layout and design
Magnolia CMS stores content separately from its publication format, allowing Content Managers to enter the content only once, but it can appear in multiple locations online, reformatted using different layouts and graphic designs. All pages immediately reflect approved content.
Ease of use
The simplicity of Magnolia's user interface means that creating and modifying content can be done by anyone with little or no training. And with the Magnolia Standard Templating Kit, authors can focus on the content creation, while development work on the back end at the same time. This drastically reduces the time needed to create and publish content, which is multiplied across the number of CMS users. The more users, the higher the savings.
Centralized graphic design management
Graphic design in Magnolia CMS is template-driven and centrally managed. Templates ensure a consistent, professional look and feel for all content on the site and allow for simultaneous modification of a site's or multiple sites' entire graphic design.
After working with Vignette for two years, we decided to switch from their CMS software to Magnolia. The operational benefits have been tremendous. Its focus on simplicity and ease of use has quickly won over our users as well. After using Magnolia for 2 years, we are still very happy with it.
Sean McMains, Technical Lead, Enterprise Applications at Texas State University
Selected higher education and research clients
- Texas State University
- Scientific Learning
- Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
- SUPSI (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland)
- Diamond Light Source
- Berkeley Labs – US Department of Energy (USA)
- Fundación Comillas
- ems Electronic Media School
Selected Case Studies
Texas State University
Texas State University had invested a tremendous amount of time and money into their CMS implementation. The result? They had managed to get only a dozen sites into the system, and still had stale content and unhappy users. After two years with the old CMS technology, Texas State University had had enough, and switched to Magnolia Enterprise Edition. They now run 294 sites, have more dynamic and current content, and users love to work with Magnolia. Sounds too good to be true? Did we even mention the massive savings yet? But read on. read on Texas State University