The Postgraduate Computing department of the Open University commissioned Online Solutions to design and develop a new website to market and publicise the numerous postgraduate computing opportunities available throughout the university. The brief therefore was to create a website that not only appealed to its target audience, but talked the language of the students, not the university. The structure of the website was carefully constructed and tailored specifically to provide easy access to information for both potential and existing students.
Having recently completed an extensive re-branding exercise, the Open University invited Online Solutions to not only design a website that appealed to the target audience, but to create a contained online experience that would champion the new brand whilst still maintaining a sense of individuality.
To capitalise on the existing technology infrastructure within the Open University's Computing department, Online Solutions developed a bespoke Content Management System (CMS) supplied primarily by content stored within Lotus Notes databases. The resulting CMS provides website editors with the ability to administer the website "locally" when not connected to the internet and release updates as and when they next synchronise (replicate) with the head office servers.