Client
Metropolitan School District of Warren Township (Indianapolis)
Description of Organization
MSD of Warren Township is a K-12 educational institution serving the East side of the Greater Indianapolis area. MSD Warren Township consists of 20 schools and educational institutions, ranging from an early childhood development center to a top-rated high school.
Website
www.warren.k12.in.us (in addition to 20 individual school sites)
Industry
Education
Challenges
- Each individual school needed to have its own website, but similar layout and design
- The amount of content for 20 Schools and one over-reaching district page was massive
- Managing daily changes to each website was time consuming, both from a communications and technical perspective
- Too many staff members were responsible for website updates
- Needed ability to push content to multiple outlets easily
Solution
Selected Marketpath for design and development services as well as Marketpath CMS to manage all 21 websites.
Results
- Helped streamline and standardize schools' message, improving effectiveness of websites
- Streamlined content creation, approval, and publishing process , improving communication efficiency
- Reduced website management personnel from 21 to 2
- Provided approximately $30,000 annual cost savings as opposed to hiring full-time web developer
Testimonials
"Marketpath CMS is by far the simplest and most easy-to-use content management system I've seen, and I've seen a lot of them."
-James Aldridge, Chieft Technology Officer, MSD Warren Township
"Marketpath's Content Management System is easy to use and flexible, unlike many web-based services we have used in the past".
They were dedicated to developing applications that met our specific needs as a school district. When we were faced with a cumbersome task, Marketpath offered a more efficient solution. We also appreciate the availability of 24/7 support that Marketpath has offered us - turnaround time for response to a support ticket is many times within the hour!"
-Linda Wise, Executive Secretary, MSD Warren Township
Boosting MSD Warren's Website Productivity
MSD Warren Township has set a goal to offer the best educational experience possible for students, and parents alike. With the motto "The Future Begins Here", Warren has committed to following the highest academic standards to provide one of the best educations in the Indianapolis Metropolitan area. In doing so, the need for a highly-functionally, ever-changing, and easily-updatable web presence became a top priority. Marketpath, an industry leader in website design, development, and an easy-to-use website content management systems for schools offered MSD Warren Township a unique solution that met its needs and fit within its budget.
MSD Warren Township's Challenge
Warren needed to improve its overall web presence and increase interaction between the websites and the students, parents and its faculty. The old district website was filled with broken links, outdated text, and incorporated a less than intuitive navigation structure. Each school in the district had a fragmented website and a different procedure for updating its site, usually resulting in a disjointed message from school to school. It became very apparent that a new website strategy and design were desperately needed if the school district was going to utilize the Internet as a powerful conduit for delivering its message. The goals for the project were:
·Design 21 websites, utilizing the same format and structure, so that each visit is familiar, but each website (and school) also has its own personality and branding
·Develop each website to utilize a mix of unique content, district-wide content, as well as calendars and news blogs
·Develop a way to publish global content to multiple sites at one time
·Streamline the navigation of each website to easily guide visitors to their desired information quickly and efficiently
·Make it easier for fewer people to manage more websites and more content
·Maintain multiple calendars with global, district-level, entries that automatically propagate to school calendars
Marketpath's Solution
MSD Warren Township selected Marketpath for its design and development services, along with its web content management system, Marketpath CMS. The project was completed by Marketpath, meeting all six goals listed above.
Marketpath was able to design a new layout for the district site of MSD Warren Township that could also be utilized by each school. Each school's logo, colors, and unique messaging could be dropped into the layout, creating a sense of school pride, while maintaining a familiar site layout and navigation.
The 21 websites were developed, utilizing the latest functionality available, to increase both the user experience and the efficiency of the website administrator when making updates.
For instance:
·A calendar function was built so users could easily see school-wide and district-wide events in chronological order
·Marketpath's blogging application was utilized so that administrators could post newsworthy items that could then be fed to different places on the site via RSS
·Marketpath developed the use of Global Tokens, which are an easy way to push district-wide content to all the sites at one time, from one place, eliminating multiple edits.
Marketpath also employed the use of Marketpath CMS, its proprietary software-as-a-service website content management system, on each site to help increase the efficiency of content updates. In doing so, Warren was able to pass the responsibility of managing 21 websites to 2 existing school administrators, easing the burden on an already strained IT staff.
Results and Value Delivered
MSD Warren Township set out to improve its web presence with a suite of fully-functional, flexible websites that were easy to manage and modify. Marketpath's solution fit the project perfectly, providing updated designs, enhanced usability, and its content management system, Marketpath CMS. Warren now has complete control over each website in the district and a centralized team to provide updates, which has led to improved accuracy, timeliness, and quality of the content being delivered. Warren's administrators have attributed the success to the ongoing relationship with Marketpath:
"We selected Marketpath as our provider because we didn't want a vendor that would just tell us what our website should look like", said Peggy Hinckley, Metropolitan School District of Warren Township Superintendent. "We wanted a vendor who would listen and understand our needs."
Want more good news? By completing the project within budget and by delegating the website management duties to two existing staff members, MSD Warren Township was able to avoid hiring a full-time website developer, saving the district approximately $30,000 annually.
If you'd like to find out more about how Marketpath might be able to help your school or school district enhance their website's productivity, please let us know.
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