Smartsite CMS as web application platform to construct multiple websites and the intranet

 

The University of Hasselt is - with its 35 years - a very recent university that in a relatively short period of time has been growing exponentially to a flourishing centre of education, research and services to the business world.  This is not just for Limburg but with branches far across the borders. A formation as completely as possible, like the word ‘universitas’ shows, is a fundamental aspect of training which is being set as a goal by University Hasselt: not just professional trainings but also language, communication and other humane skills are integrated in every scientific or economical training. Only a person which is formed as completely as possible is capable of passing and handing over general solution methods .

 

In the academy year 2008-2009 which is the 36th academy year of the university, 2.773 students had been registered. The courses had already been extended to information science, biomedical sciences, applied economic sciences, transportation sciences and law.

 

The academic staff currently holds 501 members (professors, assistants and researchers) and there are 232 administrative and technical staff  members.

 

The current website of UHasselt (http://www.uhasselt.be/) is ‘custom made’ by Active Server Pages and ASP.NET technology and it is, in a large degree, being fed by a DB2 database as well as being maintained manually. Several separate applications such as news system, agenda, vacancies, press announcements, newspaper cuttings and photo galleries can be considered as separate CMS components. The website is subdivided into 80 sub sites and exists out of approximately 2000 pages. It takes up about 6Gb of disk space with approximately 105.000 files divided into 9000 folders.

 

UHasselt uses MS FrontPage for management in a distributed way with limited responsibilities. Besides this website, about 15 other sites are accommodated on the same server. (COEPL/VLUP,CMK, BIOMED, CENSTAT, CTL, AUHL, RPLL, KIZOK, etc.)

 

The used server technology for the website is Windows Server2003 with IIS combined with MS FrontPage and Visual Studio 2005 for development.

 

The current approach no longer meets the expectations of the users, moreover, it puts a strain on the possible further growth of the platform.  It is certain that more can be done and one could stand further when it would be supported by a professional Content Management solution.

 

Smartsite iXperion is the newest version of the successful content management system Smartsite which responded best to the specific content management demands and wishes of UHasselt. Smartsite reunites reliable and well-tried functionality with the latest stand of technique and powerful new tools. Smartsite iXperion is the robust platform for websites, intranets, portals, electronic services, knowledge management environments and much more.

 

As a pilot project, UHasselt decided to create the new sub site with Service Point Belgium “Tech Transfer” which is granted a new layout and uses the Smartsite CMS as engine.

 

Tech Transfer means stimulating the knowledge and technology transfers of the University Hasselt and the associated colleges of higher education to the business world.

 

This currently is a sub site of the larger website and, even afterwards, it has to coexist with the already existing (but not yet migrated) websites. In the long term, UHasselt would like to transfer the rest of the website in phases to Smartsite iXperion.

 

Wishes have been expressed to deploy Smartsite CMS for publication towards the intranet as well as publishing to PDA, CD-ROM and print at a later stage.