Profile

Since its founding in 1885, the School of Pharmacy at the University of Kansas has been a leader in pharmaceutical education. Since 1996, the school has offered only the Doctor of Pharmacy degree as the entry level practice degree. The curriculum has been significantly revised to provide the education and experiential training that will provide the student with the knowledge, skills, and ability required of the pharmacy practitioner in the 21st century. The curriculum is comprehensive in scope and is designed to produce a highly competent general practitioner.

Challenge

• Create a Web site that is representative of the School of Pharmacy and its unique image.
• Use a database-driven back end to capably manage more than 4,000 pages of content across 9 different sites.
• Ensure high-navigability for users with clean drop-down menus, despite the large amount of content available.
• Provide a powerful search engine that easily peruses the bulk of content.
• Create a user-friendly layout with an appealing look and feel for end-users.
• Create permission and security functionality that allows various departments to maintain their own departmental information.
• Provide quick and functional access to different departmental sites through consistent links.
• Allow faculty and staff to update and modify site content securely with no technical abilities.
• Present site users with events managed through comprehensive calendaring.
• Implement room scheduling to eliminate scheduling conflicts and overbooking.

Response

To accurately and efficiently meet all of the KU School of Pharmacy’s needs, AllofE developed a customized version of its ContentM application, which creates, manages and maintains growing and dynamic content simply. While the content management tool is powerful and comprehensively functional, it simultaneously requires no technical knowledge for use.

AllofE designers began by creating a Web site that is up-to-date and appealing, offering users a fresh, clean view from page to page. Through a user-friendly point-and-click process, faculty and staff across multiple departments can update and add content to the site in real-time without technical training or abilities. Templates are customized for simple reuse and for maintaining consistency throughout the various content pieces. Quick links were added, along with a powerful search engine, to assist site visitors in accessing the right content and the right time with ease. The site provides both undergraduates and graduates with separate news and events, created with ease through the comprehensive calendaring plug-in module. AllofE concluded by adding RMTraK to the site, which allows faculty and staff members to reserve rooms in pharmacy buildings through point-and-click features. The scheduling keeps everyone informed and up-to-date, while eliminating reservation conflicts and other potential problems.

Effects

With ContentM, KU School of Pharmacy can now manage their large mass of content with ease, in a presentable and appealing manner. This application also allows for easy management of site updates and modifications as content is evaluated and changes. Comprehensive calendaring provides for all of the school’s scheduling needs in conjunction with RMTraK, which eliminates room-scheduling conflicts. KU School of Pharmacy can now make changes to their site and schedules in a timely, cost-efficient manner while proudly displaying their modern, visually-enhanced site design to all visitors.