T44U 2014 – an overview

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Paddy and I have recently returned from the annual CMS conference – T44U.  As ever, the conference took place in Dublin and the foggy weather managed to follow us there and back!  But that didn’t stop the two days being jam-packed full of updates, news, developments and user case studies about the CMS as well as general sessions around the world of web.

There are a lot of notes to digest and formalise into something useful for both the Web Team and the wider University but here are a few themes and thoughts so far:

The conference covered:

  • Developments of the CMS itself, including the new version to be launched in December and rolled out early next year (version 8)
  • Case studies and user experiences of using the CMS and digital/online activities generally
  • A company update in terms of TerminalFour’s resources, training, documentation and general support

Themes across the two days included:

  • Personalisation
  • CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing/Management)
  • Social media
  • Accessibility
  • Making the most of Version 8

Project ideas and general developments ideas we have had so far include:

  • Improved course search functionality online
  • Prospectus builder online
  • Blogging more!
  • Breaking larger projects into smaller development ‘sprints’ and reporting more widely on these activities
  • Better social media integration and social sharing online

And much more besides!

STOP PRESS: presentations now available (12 December 2014)

Well, what does this all mean for me?

Now that the Web Team has a couple of new members we are looking to do things a bit differently including:

  • Reporting wider and more frequently on the activities we do and the priorities we have
  • Getting the web community together for informal learning and sharing sessions
  • Redeveloping our own website to be a useful resource for colleagues within the University

We will also be revisiting the training programme with Jacqui once we know when we might be moving to the new version of the CMS – which will now be called TerminalFour, rather than SiteManager.

More news soon!

Claire