Medical school enhances its Web sites

The Yale School of Medicine is upgrading its 300 Web sites to share a common appearance, to increase functionality and speed, and to reduce Web building costs. Those sites receive about 600,000 visitors per month. To help realize the improvements, the school has selected a content system (CMS) solution from SDL Tridion.

The change to a new CMS is intended to create a consistent brand identity for all the school's sites so that information can be shared more readily. The effort is part of a broader, schoolwide Web restructuring project that began two years ago, according to a press release from SDL Tridion.

Web managers are working to template content so it will have a common look. About 30 Web sites have switched to the new design so far, with many more in transition. The deployment of SDL Tridion's R5 Web Content Management software is expected to be fully operational next year, according to the company. Web managers plan to add such capabilities as RSS feeds, e-mail newsletters, mobile phone functionality and rapid foreign language translations of medical information.

Erik Aeyelts Averink, SDL Tridion president, says that R5's BluePrinting technology will ensure that the school's branding initiative remains consistent across department sites and outlets.