WCMS Processes

Content managers can access their website content, perform edits and publish content at any time with the exception of the items listed on this page. There are necessary processes in place for each of these functions, detailed under each heading.

Directory Pages

The website directory is a reporting system and the individual directory pages for ODU faculty and staff are system-generated using authoritative data sources.

Content owners and content managers can change the configuration of their office's directory page using the online forms at www.odu.edu/cq/toolkit/directory.

The directory system refreshes every evening beginning at 7 p.m. Changes made in BANNER before 5 p.m. will be live the following morning. Changes made in the AFaculty Activity System will be live the following day or the second following day.

Index of Content Pages

Index of Content pages, which show where an office's content is located on the website, are auto-generated by the system. These pages are primarily for authors but they can also provide a useful A to Z index of an office's content for website visitors. Content owners can choose whether these pages are published to the public website.

New Page Creation

After an office's migration is complete, new pages must be requested via an online form at www.odu.edu/cq. Requests are processed within three business days and evaluated for appropriate fit in the University's information architecture.

An approval process for new page creation is required for two purposes:

1. Prevent duplicate content
   • Duplicate content dramatically hurts search engine results page rankings not just for the pages with duplicate content, but for the odu.edu domain as a whole
   • A primary goal of the website project was to use authoritative sources for content and duplicate pages are rarely created by the authoritative source, meaning that the duplicate page will quickly become inaccurate
2. Preserve the University's information architecture, ensuring the navigability of the site and that the site remains organized for the website user and not for the employees maintaining content

Digital Asset Upload

Content owners, managers and contributors can submit photos, images and documents (PDFs and Microsoft Office documents) that they wish to use on their webpages via an online form at www.odu.edu/cq.

The Web Communications team guarantees a three business day turnaround on asset uploads. Asset uploads are typically turned around same day or next business day. Web authors are made aware of this process during the required WCMS training.

There is no approval process for digital assets. The Web Communications team processes the uploads to ensure that appropriate metadata is submitted with all assets and that minimum WCMS size requirements are met for photo and image assets. The Web Communications team copies the submitted metadata into the actual asset before publishing the asset.

Ensuring that appropriate metadata is loaded for every asset:

• Ensures compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act - Sight-impaired visitors who use site readers will hear the metadata description for assets, allowing them to fully experience the site
• Helps increase rankings on search engine results pages as new search engine algorithms read the metadata and tags associated with images and documents and factors their relevance into rankings
• Allows users to find the information that they need