Case Study
Columbia Center To Smooth Web Operations with Collaboration Suite
A college or university without a Web site is inconceivable today, but with every site comes the challenge of managing content. Some sort of automated system is a given, but how much should the site's content management system integrate with other aspects of the campus computing infrastructure?
Bluenog
, an enterprise software and solutions company, is taking a somewhat different approach to content management with a new suite that integrates three content and data management tools into a single product, called Bluenog ICE (Integrated Collaborative Environment). ICE combines business intelligence (BI) software, portal management tools, and an enterprise content management system (CMS) into a single framework. That combination, while unusual in a software suite, can greatly simplify Web site administration and security because there's far less integration work. If you already have other tools in place for some of those functions, Bluenog saidits product can also integrate with your existing commercial portal, CMS, and BI systems.
One interesting use of the Bluenog ICE suite is taking place at
Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network
(CIESIN). The nearly 20-year-old non-profit center, which joined Columbia 10 years ago, aims to help scientists, politicians, and the public better understand the changing relationship between humans and the environment. As such, it has a large number of public-facing Web sites and pages. The center recently began deploying Bluenog ICE to help manage some 10,000 pages of content under 15 Web domains.
According to CIESIN's associate director of IT, Sri Vinay, the 40-person center is rolling out the Bluenog product gradually, beginning with the content management system for news items and other material that the center updates regularly. In a year, the goal is to have most of the center's newest Web sites, where content is updated regularly, migrated to the Bluenog CMS.
Although CIESIN is focusing first on content management, Vinay said, the decision to select Bluenog was also related to the portal and BI components in ICE. Once the CMS portion is solidly in place, those functions will be deployed gradually over the next several years.