Digital
The goal of Western Communications office is to bring the campus web presence to a unified, intuitive, easy to use look and feel. We strongly encourage the campus community (both academic and administrative units alike) to use Cascade content management system (CMS) as a platform for their websites. There are several reasons for supporting this recommendation:
No-cost setup, training, and maintenance
Cascade is the web platform of choice for Western. Information Technology Services (ITS) is fully committed to supporting the CMS. ITS offers technical support for the initial setup and a training class for the units’ representatives involved in creating and maintaining websites and their content.
Flexible design templates that are standards compliant
Western Communications developed the web templates to be compliant with current accessibility (AODA) standards and are cross-browser compatible (IE 7+). Also, they are fully responsive, i.e. mobile-friendly. They come complete with secondary pages, a global navigation structure, and a lower-level navigation scheme. The units will need to develop the general layout, label the navigation items, and generate content to populate these templates.
Ease of access
You will be able to access your website by logging in from anywhere. There is no software to download and no client-side installation.
Consistent Western look and feel
While the units have freedom in shaping the look of their websites, the University has certain web and graphic standards to which the units’ websites need to adhere. Adopting Cascade templates guarantees that most, if not all, of these standards will be followed.
Ease of Use
Cascade allows many non-technical users to update content and create webpages quickly, with no knowledge of HTML or programming. This significantly reduces the time, effort, and resources the unit would normally spend on training its personnel in new web tools.
