Contribute 4 as a possible solution?

[dpw168]

Hi,
We are a gov agency and have a number of Field Offices that have (or will
have) their own Web site. We are trying to find a solution so that staff out
in these locations can take over content maintenance. The range of user
knowledge in this area goes from neophite to "maybe I once did something with
Front Page."

Most of the existing sites have been developed with Dreamweaver. But there
was also a lack of standardization on some of them. For instance, no template
used.

Would you consider Contribute as a viable solution to do this?

If so, what kind of training options exist for these users? Classroom?
On-Line? Other?

Thank You for any advice.

dpw168

[Howard Heflin]

dpw168 wrote:

> Hi,
> We are a gov agency and have a number of Field Offices that have (or will
> have) their own Web site. We are trying to find a solution so that staff out
> in these locations can take over content maintenance. The range of user
> knowledge in this area goes from neophite to "maybe I once did something with
> Front Page."
>
> Most of the existing sites have been developed with Dreamweaver. But there
> was also a lack of standardization on some of them. For instance, no template
> used.
>
> Would you consider Contribute as a viable solution to do this?
>
> If so, what kind of training options exist for these users? Classroom?
> On-Line? Other?
>
> Thank You for any advice.
>
> dpw168
>

FWIW: I suspect that the answer to your question lay somewhere between
the lines. However, if the sites are set up with templates in which
only certain "editable regions" are open to editing; then CT will work
wonderfully. If however, the entire pages are open to editing; then
there is no way to prevent intentional or unintentional muck-ups on the
pages in general. In that case, I don't think that anything will work
very well without someone who is pretty knowledgeable at website support
keeping close watch over the pages for both content and layout problems.

As for training, with these presumptions:
1.) Those people who are doing the content editing are at least
reasonably familiar with MS Word and/or Excel functions and features.
2.) They normally are not malicious.
AND THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT
3.) They can and will follow instructions.

I may be oversimplifying just a bit; but, it doesn't take much user
training to do content updates with CT other than the normal "here's how
you open CT; here's how you select things to be edited; here's how you
publish; here's how you properly close CT so that others can edit it
later. This call all be done with a "cookbook" type User Document.

And of course you do still need to have someone who is responsible for
the whole process.

Setting up CT with a responsible Administrator and set of user groups
with appropriate pass-wording is about all that needs to be done to
start the whole thing.

Howard