| Abstract: | Fifty-three percent of the IT executives surveyed last summer by Jupiter Media Metrix said that they would implement a digital document management system by the end of 2002 (Kemp, 2002; Oettinger, 2002; Walker, 2002). This is not surprising in light of a 2002 Gartner CIO survey that found that content management was second only to security as a spending priority (Gilbert & Logan, 2002). However, Jupiter also indicated that many businesses will pay too much for Web content management systems and many would be better served by homegrown or low-cost solutions. One would expect this to be particularly true for colleges and universities facing severe budget cuts (Goral, 2002). Yet, there is no doubt that Web content management is important. In 2000, Syllabus magazine reported that one of the top three reasons a student selects a particular college is that school's Web site (Long). Notably, college students as a group are among the most experienced Web users. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2002), 86 percent of college students have gone online in contrast to 59 percent of the general population. Twenty percent of these students began using computers between the ages of five and eight. Thus, the challenge for institutions of higher education is to build a cost-effective Web content management environment that facilitates the development of sites for the Web's most demanding users. In February 2000, the Enterprise Solutions Group (ESG) in the Office of Computing Services (OCS) at LSU was forced to address this challenge. ESG was asked to improve the Web presence of the Division of Student Life and Academic Services (SLAS) by building 13 Web sites in five months. An additional 15 sites would be commissioned upon completion of the first 13. Student Life and Academic Services is the umbrella organization for 30 departments responsible for student services ranging from Admissions to Career Placement. At that time, many of the departments that compose SLAS were in the untenable position of having Web sites that were inaccurate and out-of-date. The challenge to complete the SLAS project in manner that would serve the best long-term interests of the University was made more difficult by the short time frame, a lack of Web development experience and a lack of personnel.
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