About

Shipley is a diverse community of students, parents, faculty, and administration dedicated to the highest standards of education and personal development. In an average class size of 15, each student is recognized for his or her unique personal and intellectual qualities and encouraged to develop them to the fullest.

Challenge

Now that the Web is a common tool among its students, parents, administrators and most teachers, the Shipley School, an independent school in the Philadelphia area with a rigorous college preparatory curriculum, relies heavily on its Web site for sharing information. According to John Zelek, director of IT for Shipley, "We needed to find a way in which the site could post dynamic content and support a scalable number of people - without any knowledge of HTML - who could add content," he said.

Zelek explained that his main priorities in selecting a Web content management system (CMS) included overall functionality, a workflow feature, ease-of-use and scalability. "After speaking with other vendors, and evaluating RedDot’s product, we decided RedDot would best meet our demanding needs," he said.

• Needed to post dynamic content
• Support of a scalable number of people
• Needed a workflow feature and ease-of-use

Solution

After a rapid one-month implementation time, Shipley’s Webmaster, Rachel Welsh, launched the live site. The school mainly uses its Web site for communicating with parents and alumni, posting homework assignments and as a public relations tool.

"Like most people with a new technology, some of our teachers were a little leery about using a Web content management tool at first," Welsh explained. "But RedDot seems to be working well for the technically aware as well as those not as interested in technology."

Teachers have found that whatever format they use to enter the content (Word, Excel, etc.) it looks the same when it’s published to the live site. Welsh said this WYSIWYG environment has contributed to the growth of the site. "Because teachers know it’s easy to use, and since content contributors can either add or edit data from any of the several buildings on our three-block campus, and it will look the same posted as it was entered, teachers have been embracing the system," Welsh said.

This has freed up Welsh’s time to let her further develop the school’s Web site. "If adding and coding content to be posted to the site was solely up to me, we would probably have the same few static pages as we did prior to RedDot," she said. "But using RedDot, we’ve greatly increased the depth of our site, cut costs by posting information on the site rather than producing print copies of materials, increased efficiencies for our teachers as well as staff and we communicate fresh news and information to our various readers daily."

• Can now publish in any format
• Depth of the site has increased
• Freed up IT’s time to further develop the school’s site
  

Results

Since implementing RedDot Solutions’ Content Management Server (CMS) more than a year ago, Shipley has recognized significant results. They’ve increased the number of Web pages from nearly 30 to several hundred, saved costs by transitioning one hard copy publication to an online document and increased efficiency by enabling more than 115 teachers, administrators and other staff to post homework, forms and news online.

As a result, when a student is sick, she or he can go online and access homework assignments. Previously, teachers submitted to the school secretary a sheet of paper detailing the upcoming week’s homework. If a student were home sick, the parent would call the school secretary to get the homework. Welsh said the RedDot system has eliminated these time-consuming extra steps.

"The system is so incredibly easy to use, users don’t have to know anything about HTML or creating a Web site," Welsh said. The school’s 115 teachers must post at least one week’s worth of homework at a time. While many teachers post several weeks worth of homework, nearly 75 teachers update content weekly and about five other staff members contribute daily. Welsh set up the system so it automatically publishes approved content every day at 5:00p.m. - including weekends.

The Shipley School is currently in the process of developing an Intranet site built on RedDot Content Management Server

• Increased the number of Web pages from nearly 30 to several hundred
• Saved costs on Web maintenance
• Content is posted in a timely manner