The Building Blocks of an Award Winning Website
Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, creates and applies knowledge for the benefit of individuals, communities and the economy. Through excellent research, teaching and innovation, its goal is to transform lives, making a powerful contribution to cultural and economic development and regeneration, in its city and region, nationally and globally. The University’s aspirations are supported by an innovative application of technology extending to its web communications. www.northumbria.ac.uk is the primary communications channel at Northumbria for its 3,500 staff, 32,500 students and 2.7 million unique visitors per year.
Northumbria University has a passion for bucking against traditional ways of working by putting online communications and services at the forefront of its policy for attracting new students. With 93% of all enquiries coming in through www.northumbria.ac.uk it is the university’s most vital communications tool and as such, has become a platform for groundbreaking new innovations including online fees payment, an interactive library system and personalized, intelligent course search profiling. But to get to this point, Nigel Bradley and Jed Woodhouse needed to revitalize the way the website worked.
As Jed Woodhouse, IT Services Director explains;
“We were looking for a solution that would fit in with our plans to change the way Northumbria University’s website was structured. Our goal was to differentiate Northumbria through innovation and the application of solutions that enabled the University to process, communicate and engage with prospects and students in a way that was new to any educational establishment in the UK. At this time, the CMS (content management solution) market was polarized into Document Management providers or web presentation solutions with management plugged in. We chose Content Manager from Alterian, as it fit perfectly between these extremes, offering the best of both worlds without sacrificing quality of service.”
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