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School Site Manager
for Webmasters and Technical Directors?

Also see Webmaster in Functions Summary

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School Website Management

School Site Manager provides a database driven tool for your school’s Webmaster or technical director to easily and effectively keep your school’s website fresh, well organized and informative. Your website will become a reliable service point for all of the audiences it is intended to serve: students, teachers, administrators, parents, the community, alumni and smaller groups such as teams, clubs, classes and study groups. When these audiences know that they can access reliable information on the website, a school will typically save time by not having to answer the same questions repeatedly and provide better service to the people who need the information.

There are two facets to school websites: functionality and appearance. School Site Manager provides an extensive, proven system that addresses the functionality of your website that your Webmaster or technical director may not have the time or technical expertise to create. When addressing the appearance of your website, we work under the direction of the person designated by administration -- the Webmaster, technical director or an administrator -- to get the look and feel that you want for your website. Throughout the remainder of this guide that person will be referred to as the Webmaster. You may select one of the design styles that we customize with your school colors and photos at no additional charge, you may choose to get a fully customized design style just for you or you may decide to keep your present design. (If you decide to keep your present design style, some modification may be necessary to accommodate the system.)

Managing the website content life cycle

The website content life cycle is the series of stages involved in getting content onto the site, being available to site visitors, then being removed when no longer needed. The essence of effective websites is that good quality information is available when it is needed and is removed when its time is done. School Site Manager helps with the latter two, but getting content into the site will be the responsibility of the Webmaster. This will not be an additional burden on the Webmaster, but rather a significant lessening of that person’s workload because School Site Manager allows the Webmaster to delegate the responsibility for adding content to a variety of people. The Webmaster will then simply review the content and approve or disapprove the submission with a mouse click. Where appropriate, even some approval functions can be delegated.

There are several elements to consider in the website content life cycle: source, entry, notification, approval, publication, review and disposition.

Source

The content of your website will come from a variety of sources. For instance, calendar events and daily announcements will come from administration, clubs, sports groups, the PTA, parents, etc. It is most beneficial to your website for your Webmaster to assign responsibility for gathering and inputting this information to a person who will work under his or her direction. It could be a student or a committee of students or a parent volunteer. It would be most helpful if it were a person who is enthusiastic about the website and would therefore solicit interesting and varied content.

School Site Manager also provides the teachers and staff members with an opportunity to show, if they choose to, the students and the community a more personal side, what they enjoy, their travels and education and their personal photos. Most of the teachers would prefer to input this information, but the Webmaster may want to assist those who are not “computer people.” When they see how simple it is to fill in the blanks in the forms and upload photos, they will likely become more active in the upkeep of their corner of the website, making it more interesting by adding personality.

If you choose a design that has a profile feature or photo galleries, you are able to showcase whatever you choose with a photo and stories. You can showcase a teacher, a team, an award winner, an outstanding student, an event, a game, a dance, an outstanding art or science project or the school itself. This is a great feature, but it does require that someone input that content. If the Webmaster does not have time to do this, he may again delegate this. This would be a great class project for the journalism or English students. They could gather interesting photos and stories about the current events of your school. A profile will appear on the front page of your website which has been selected by the system at random, so the more profiles you have available to the system, the more varied your home page will be. Each time you visit the site you may be surprised by a fresh, new story.

Entry

It is essential that the content of the website remain under the control of the Webmaster, and, ultimately, administration. For that reason, School Site Manager includes tiers of authority for the site. It is recommended that only one or two people at the school have the highest order of authority for the site - for instance, only the Webmaster or the Webmaster and one other member of administration – so that you have complete control of your website’s content. Teachers have a narrower level of authority. They may enter and update their course sections and personal information and photos without seeking further approval. This tiered authority allows content to be input by a wide variety of sources, but not published for public viewing on the website until the appropriate person has granted approval.

Descriptive information is offered on a site for such topics as the About Us page, the description of food service, the library and the clinic. The information on these pages will be different for each school and the Webmaster should either enter the information on these pages or delegate that responsibility. This sort of information is maintained in Database-Managed Pages. These areas include:

• About us
• Bell schedules
• Food service
• Guidance & counseling
• Handbook
• Library
• Clinic
• PTA
• Newspaper
• Yearbook

More structured information is required for extracurriculars, courses and staff. In these areas forms are provided to standardize the presentation of the information, but the responsibility of filling the forms in still must be delegated to someone. (In parentheses below are our suggestions regarding the authors of these areas.) These areas include:

• Extracurriculars (coaches, sponsors, students or parent volunteers)
• Course sections (teachers, teachers aides)
• Staff information (staff)

It’s up to the administration to set content policy for the website. It’s the Webmaster’s responsibility to see that the policy is followed. Content policy includes not only the kind of information that is inappropriate for the school website but also what should be there.

Is content being supplied as expected? School Site Manager includes the Site To Do List, a tool for searching all departments, courses, sections, lesson plans, extracurriculars and database-managed pages. The Webmaster can search for any departments that do not have department descriptions or all course sections that do not have section requirements or all extracurriculars that do not have a photo on the page. You establish your requirements for different portions of the site, School Site Manager's Site To Do List helps assess your progress.

Content policy need not be elaborate or extensive.  For example, the policy for course sections may be that for each section the teacher, period and room number should be listed in addition to a description of the course.  Other schools may require weekly sets of lesson plans.  But whatever the policy, there should be a way to monitor whether it’s being followed.

Content policy should include:

• Identifying responsibility for each portion of the site (departments, courses, sections, extracurriculars, the calendar, announcements, etc.)  Responsibility may be taken by faculty, staff, volunteers, students or others.
• Minimal requirements for each department, course, section and extracurricular.
• Tools for quickly identifying which portions of the site are missing or should be brought up to date.

Approval and notification

Typically, approval is as simple as a mouse click. If the content requires some modification prior to approval, the Webmaster has access to the author’s contact information and can explain required changes. Or the Webmaster can simply delete submitted content that is not appropriate for publication. When a submission has been approved for an announcement, a calendar event, a profile, a photo gallery or facilities reservations, an email notification will automatically be sent to the submitter.

Approval authority must be assigned for the categories listed below:

• Calendar
• Announcements
• Departments
• Courses
• Extracurriculars
• Newspaper
• Resources (homework help)
• Food service menus
• Photo galleries
• Profiles
• Facilities reservations

Enabling appropriate Permissions for individual users in the Administrative Edit Users function sets approval authority. The Webmaster may choose to combine responsibility of many or all of the above content categories to the same person or he or she may decide to be the approver him or herself.

Publication

Once content is approved, it will immediately and automatically appear on the site.

Review cycle

Content typically has a useful life after which it should be modified or removed. Calendar events automatically disappear from view as months change. Announcements have activation and expiration dates to make them appear and disappear automatically when appropriate. Profiles and messages from the principal should be replaced regularly as you see fit. Homework help links should be reviewed a few times per year to ensure that they are complete and functioning. This oversight is typically done by or at the direction of the Webmaster.

Archive, remove, reuse

Old photo galleries and profiles can be fun to look back on. Use the archiving function to allow you to archive them while still keeping them fully accessible to your website visitors. Outdated information should, of course, be removed as soon as possible. The School Site Manager system does much of that work for you by including “delete on” dates. Some information can be reused. For example, a course syllabus can be applied to a new year or semester or a course policy may apply to other courses. The system provides easy ways to reuse information without re-entering it.

School Site Manager's Content Review tool helps Webmasters keep track of which pages need to be reviewed when. The Content Review tool is invaluable for managing a lot of information on a large site.

Key roles in website management

In order to keep your website fresh and effective and to infuse it with your school’s personality, it is important to have it attended by enthusiastic staff, students and parent volunteers who will take it on as a fun, educational project and a matter of school pride. In addition to the insight gained in the maintenance of a website, many lessons in teamwork, journalism, project management and personal growth will be open to your students. Here are a few suggestions for your students, staff and parent volunteers to make them feel that they are a part of your team:

• Form committees that have certain responsibilities for sections of the website. For instance, a Football Committee, a Science Club Committee, a Drama Committee, etc., whose responsibility it will be to input content for those sections of the website.
• Ask for parent volunteers through an announcement on your website home page. Parent volunteers could either take photos with a digital camera around the school or at games or events or they could input content that they or others generate regarding those events. Often parents may want to volunteer to help the school but they are not able to leave their homes because they must care for younger children or have other responsibilities. This would be an opportunity to include them as a volunteer, since they could input information from their own homes. Until the Webmaster approves the information they input, it will not be published on the website.
• Have contests for the most inspired photo gallery or the best profile story. Award the winners of the contests with certificates or ribbons or some type of recognition. Maybe even a profile of his or her own about her accomplishment. Be sure to mention the achievement in the school announcements. An award for excellence in a journalistic or artistic or technical project such as this would be an interesting achievement to include on a college application.
• Inform the teachers, students and parents about the help features of the website. Let them know that if they want to contribute, it will be simple. There is a link to the manual in the footer on each page of the website that will guide them step by step to help them make their contribution. There is additional help on the submission forms also. Let them know that the Webmaster will show them how to do any function on the site. Technical support at School Site Manager is also available free of charge by email or telephone. We will always be happy to help. Above all, be sure to let everyone know that no mistakes are fatal. Bad entries will not damage the system or even cause a problem. The Webmaster will be able to remove any entries made by mistake if the person entering it cannot. Problems fixed will be rewarded with new knowledge. The website environment should be fun, educational and, above all, positive.

And finally

Back home at the School Site Manager ranch, we feel very strongly about the benefits and value of the system we are providing to your school. We love working on this project, and we want your school’s website to meet your needs and expectations. Beyond that, we want the experience to be fun and easy, never frustrating or confusing. We have tried to build a user-friendly system, but any suggestions that you may have regarding ease-of-use features or new features that you would like to have would be warmly received. If we can be of help in any way, please contact us.

Make your website easier and more effective.

Contact us today.