University staff and faculty who desire to make material available as web content have a set of options available at WSU.  These include the Vista Learning Management System (WSUOnline), the Site Manager Content Management System administered by the Web Development Department, and the Front Page servers hosting such sites as faculty.weber.edu and departments.weber.edu.  At times questions have arisen as to the appropriate uses of these options for particular kinds of material.  There are not requirements or institutional mandates that govern the posting of material to the various systems, but there are advantages and disadvantages for students, faculty, and staff, to the use of each system.  This statement is meant to provide some guidance in that regard.

            Vista and Site Manager are packaged software systems.  This means that these programs operate within well-defined parameters.  Training is available from the vendors of these programs, program documentation and technical support are available for Vista, and Site Manager was largely customized by WSU Web Development staff.  User or system problems that occur therefore tend to be over a fairly narrow range.  Common problems can be identified, and lower-level help desk and operator personnel trained in the procedures to respond to these problems.  Systems changes are subject to quality control by WSU staff in testing environments before they are deployed to production systems, while changes to content are closely controlled by the system itself.

In contrast, the faculty.weber.edu web site is less a system than a tool made available for faculty use for posting material to the web.  Use of this server is much more varied, with the result that problems tend to occur over a wider domain than those servers above.  The problems tend to be more idiosyncratic, with their resolution requiring the efforts of more specialized staff.  There is very little technical control of what is posted to the server, and no quality control.  The result of all of this is that there can expected to be substantial differences in the amount of time required by staff to respond to and resolve problems in these systems, with the managed systems having quicker response and so higher availability for users.  This is particularly true for problems that occur on weekends and evenings.

            There are features within Vista and Site Manager that result in the web pages published within those systems having some common details of appearance and format, with the result that these pages can be readily identified as part of the Weber State University web site and representing our institution.  On the other hand, material posted to the faculty.weber.edu server can be more free form, allowing much more self-expression and individuality in presentation. 

            Based upon this analysis, faculty who wish to put curricular content on the web, and who are concerned about the reliability of the system and availability of this content to students, would be best served to put this content into Vista.  Those posting informational material for general consumption, for either on campus or off campus audiences, should consider using Site Manager for its reliability and standardized, branded appearance.  The Front Page servers, including faculty.weber.edu, are the place for more personal content, such as vitae or professional statements or publications.

April 4, 2005