Redesign of CMU’s website to cost $550,000

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One of the main goals of Central Michigan University’s website redesign was to establish a Web structure where things are easily found, said Vice President for Information Technology Roger Rehm.

Rehm, also CMU’s chief information officer, said people in the CMU community will be directed to a website different from the general public where they will sign in and have access to all of the goods and services in one place.

“It’s like iCentral on steroids,” he said.

Rehm said CMU decided to partner with Blue Chip Consulting Group in Ohio, for the website redesign primarily because there was more work to be done than could be achieved through campus resources. He said Blue Chip was selected through a competitive request.

The cost of the website redesign is $550,000 to be paid over six installments plus travel expenses, according to a document Central Michigan Life obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The web task force said these are one-time funds.

Mary Jane Flanagan, executive assistant to the president, said University President George Ross and Provost Gary Shapiro made the decision to redesign the website, and Shapiro appointed the web task force. She said CMU is where it should be in the middle of the development phase.

The website was supposed to be up in August, but Rehm said in an email by mid-summer the number of web pages to be migrated grew to more than 50,000.

“The complexity of those pages, as well as the sheer number of them, resulted in the delay,” he said.

The way the web structure is set up now, people have to know where information is already before they can find it, Rehm said. For example, information about program events is located at cmich.edu, while the option to pay bills online is located at iCentral.

Rehm said all the information on iCentral will be at users’ fingertips with one login, so they do not have to hop back and forth between websites. The public website at cmich.edu will have a lot less content and it will be easier to find things, he said.

“We’re going to be basically giving everyone a dashboard where that information is at their fingertips,” he said.

All of CMU will have a whole lot more control over its website, not just University Communications, Rehm said.

Derek van der Merwe, senior associate athletic director, said the web task force recognized early that there is potential for exponential growth on the web, and this project is preparing CMU for the future. He said the website now cannot functionally support all the new technologies.

“This is CMU being proactive and anticipating what will happen,” he said.

Renee Walker, associate vice president of public relations and marketing, said numerous enhancements to the functionality of the website will prepare CMU for future technology opportunities. She said it will be more accessible on smartphones and tablets.

Flanagan said search functionality improvements will benefit everyone. She said CMU will improve structure around website navigation to make it easier to find everything.

“We really believe this project is going to result in more robust search functionality,” she said.

Rehm said the website redesign would not dramatically affect the IT department.

“We’re using the same technologies we’ve always used,” he said.

Rochester sophomore Erik Nowak said he thinks the website redesign is a step toward the future for CMU. He said he has not had problems with the website in the past, but he thinks the redesign would make it easier for people to find information on iCentral.

“The fact that they could put more information on one website instead of two websites would make it easier for students to find what they need,” he said.

Scottville sophomore Rosie Mavis said she uses smartphones a lot, so the project would make the CMU website more accessible to her.

“I think it would just make (the website) easier to access on campus if you’re not by a computer,” she said.