Birds sited on FatWire

User Stories from the knowledge front

With one recent project attracting 100,000 participants worldwide, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University wanted an Internet-based system that would allow bird watchers to easily submit sighting information. Among other digital assets, the lab boasts the world's largest collection of bird sounds.

The lab chose a solution that consists of using Fatwire’s UpdateEngine6 and UE Studio to build and manage its Web site and several Web-based projects. According to FatWire, the system will provide automated workflow and a consistent, easy-to-use interface to pull information from multiple sources, including the lab's digital asset management (DAM) solution.

Says Todd Warfel, the lab's user experience architect, "Initially we were looking for CM software to manage content on several project sites; then we learned FatWire's UE6 could also power the workflow engine for our entire DAM system. This was a huge selling point for us. . . It can easily and effectively create and deliver the most up-to-date content to site users and contributors around the world, and it's Java-based, which was critical from an integration standpoint."

Prior to implementation of the new solution, all site development was done manually. The result has been "tremendous savings," according to Warfel.

"But it's less about money and more about energy and time," he says. "As it stands now, we simply don't have the resources to develop/deploy all the content-related pages we need for the sites. Realistically, we have some sites/projects that have in some cases waited nine months or more to get some of the development done. This is essentially due to the small staff in IT (10 to 12 people) who are responsible for servicing 12 sites and 40 internal customers. Now that we're implementing the new system, we'll enable most of those 40 people to become content contributors, editors, publishers without the need to involve IT."