Over the last couple of years, the OSTraining team has been working with the team at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab for short) at Florida State University.
MagLab is a research powerhouse with discoveries in physics, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, geochemistry, biochemistry.
But, MagLab was stuck with an old, slow, HTML website. I talked Kristen Coyne who helped their team build a new Joomla site at nationalmaglab.org.
Welcome, Kristen. Please introduce yourself
My name is Kristen Coyne and I’m the web content director at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. We’re the largest, highest-powered magnet lab in the world, and scientists from dozens of countries come to use our unique magnets for their experiments.
Can you describe the project you just completed?
We just redesigned our old static HTML site and built the new one in Joomla! The site is nationalmaglab.org.
It seriously took us close to two (often grueling) years to do it, because the scope of the project was huge; we started with no knowledge of content management systems at all.
We had more enthusiasm and ambition than experience; dozens of people were involved in the decision making and content creation process; and we introduced lots of new features and content.
How did the project get started and what kind of resources did you have available?
The project started when our bosses said, Build a new website, and specifically directed us to use a CMS. While many people played critical roles in the project, including awesome graphic designers and IT staff at the lab, most of the work was done by me and our whip-smart webmaster, M Tabtimtong. M’s learning curve on the project was the intellectual equivalent of a Mount Everest ascent.
Our resources were mostly our time, blood, sweat and tears, but we were also able to hire some outside assistance, including OSTraining – invaluable in our education process – and Casey McLaughlin, a local whiz who built the component that allowed us to integrate info from our .NET publications and staff databases.
Interns also made valuable contributions, and our work was guided and supported by a steering committee and our fabulous boss, MagLab Public Affairs Director Kristin Roberts.
What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome?
Climbing Mount Everest was definitely the biggest obstacle. We were learning something entirely new. We needed to learn everything … including finding out how to find out stuff. We were new to the world of online support forums, and there was some hit and miss in locating people who could tell us what we needed to know.
What advice would you give to others starting a similar project?
Well – especially if you begin as cluelessly as we did -- I would say identify the people within and outside your organization who can provide guidance, support, wisdom.
We also worked with a lot of stakeholders within the lab, both scientists and administrators, across three locations. Although more stakeholders = more time and more work, it also ends in a much better product if you’re willing to listen honestly. Many of the best ideas came from those stakeholders. It’s also a more rewarding process, in my opinion.