1. Remaking the HUP (& 1 Other)
Press Website
Timothy Doyle
Harvard University Press
April 14, 2012

2. Agenda
 How was it planned
 What were the primary goals/reasons for doing it?
 How was it managed & implemented
 How would we do it differently
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3. How was it Planned
 Coordinated closely between IT and Marketing
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4. What were the primary goals/reasons
 Improve data accuracy
 Enable interaction with data
 Simplify maintenance
 Enhance presentation
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5. How was it Managed & Implemented
 In IT with assistance from an external develeper
for the shopping chart
 Development time took about 17 months (against
a budget of 12 months)
 Other IT initiatives took a backseat during
development
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6. What would we do differently?
 Use a standard CMS such as Drupal (rather than Filemaker)
 Future development lies within IT (rather than Marketing
 Can’t use CMS plug ins
 Challenges SEO effort
 Manage scope creep more effectively
 Leverage University or external web designers rather than
internal staff
 Evaluate alternative hosting options (performance issues)
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7. Experiences of a Tier 1 Press
 What Drove Decision to Change
 Website was developed in 2000 by site that did hosting
 Hosting services and responsiveness was poor
 Process to Move and Upgrade Website
 Outsourced to a 2-person firm who had expertise in
developing Amazon-like shopping carts
 Migrated technology from AST to Java at a cost of $3,500
 Positives – Overall service and functionality improved and
cart interacts with Oklahoma and CDC for physical &
electronic
 Negatives – Design could be improved
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