www.ccbcmd.edu

The website is a gateway to the college's online environment and serves as a primary means of communication to key college audiences by providing critical information and access to online services.

www.ccbcmd.edu was rebuilt on the Sitecore content management system in a multi-year redevelopment project that began in 2012 and involved the review of all aspects of site management, technology, content and design. The website runs in an on-premises, load balanced production environment consisting of one content management server and two content delivery servers.

The goals of the website are to:

  • Attract prospective students and engage them in the decision-making process;
  • Provide access to key web resources for current students and other key audiences such as alumni, community businesses and donors;
  • Elevate CCBC’s perception/brand/credibility;
  • Communicate the true breadth and depth of all of CCBC’s offerings;
  • Improve the ability to measure marketing results via the use of analytics; and
  • Streamline content publishing.
To meet this broad range of goals, more than 100 employees from across the college regularly update and maintain the words, media files and links that continuously improve the user experience on the CCBC website. Learn more»

Features

Decentralized content management

CCBC uses Sitecore to power a distributed content authoring model. More than 100 faculty and staff throughout the College, who have been trained in their roles as content contributors and/or owners, maintain content items in Sitecore. Before being published to the live website, their work passes through a prescribed approval workflow based on the specific department’s processes. Once the work is approved by the content owner at the department level, it is reviewed by the Web Team to ensure that it meets all applicable College standards before being published to the live site.

Content automation

As a core concept of its design, the site integrates course, class, program, and employee contact information from other college systems in which the data is managed, such as Ellucian Banner and Acalog ACMS. Data is passed from the various native systems to the website by means of a proxy data provider.

Complex search

Because the site is both broad and deep, custom search functionality is an important aspect of the design, allowing users to access course, program and other information more readily.

Page designs

The Web Team has designed a collection of similarly formatted page layouts so that the CCBC website maintains consistency. Occasionally, design customizations are made for high profile marketing campaigns.

Multimedia integration

From social media feeds to open graphs, multimedia content is integrated throughout the CCBC site. Carousels and photo galleries utilize up-to-date high quality, professional photography.

Accessibility

CCBC is committed to ensuring all users have equal access to information and functionality. The Web Team uses Siteimprove, quality assurance monitoring system, to ensure the website is in a format that individuals with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with in the same manner as individuals without disabilities.

Aliases

Since the CCBC website is home to thousands of pages, some of the URLs can be quite long. Luckily, we can assign pages an alias to provide an alternative and more “friendly" URL.

For example, instead of providing this link “https://www.ccbcmd.edu/Resources-for-Students/Student-Records-and-Transcripts/Graduation/Commencement.aspx” to get to the commencement page, the alias “https://www.ccbcmd.edu/commencement” has been created.

It is short, clear and easy to remember. Most importantly it takes students to the same page as the traditional, long URL.

View the Alias Directory»

Analytics

Analytics allows CCBC to help quantify the impact of the CCBC website. Which pages are frequently visited? Which pages are not? What is the page load speed? Where is traffic coming from? The Web Team uses Google Analytics and Siteimprove to answer these questions and more to enhance the user experience, make informed decisions, and improve advertising.

Recent Web Projects

Take a look at some of the projects the Web Management Team completed in 2020 and get a preview of what’s to planned for the future. Learn more»