LSA Gateway: Faculty and staff portal to the college

Historically the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) used its public web site for some content that ideally would have gone to department- or college-level intranet sites, if those sites had existed. This past summer, using the same web content management software as our public web site - Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) - LSA Web Services implemented the first phase of the LSA Gateway project.

The LSA Gateway is the go-to source for all LSA policies, procedures, forms, templates, and resources. It is only accessible to LSA faculty and staff. The log-in access to the LSA Gateway uses your uniqname and UMICH password. When users log in to the system it uses Shibboleth to query the data warehouse for your official affiliations and only displays the content you're authorized to see. Access is restricted to U-M faculty and staff with an LSA affiliation (with an exceptions list for sponsored accounts for non-LSA people who need access).

The project chose to use AEM for two major reasons. First, the people making content changes on the LSA Gateway were strongly correlated if not identical to those already making content changes on the public web site. They already know and understand the tool which makes their workflow simpler. Second, it's easy to move content within the AEM system between the public content tree and the private LSA Gateway tree on the back end. If someone decides that content needs to move it's a simple "move" operation instead of the three "export, import, and reformat" operations.

The majority of the content that previously existed under the "Faculty and Staff" section of the LSA public website has already been moved to the LSA Gateway. Users can find information from each service area listed below:

Resources available for faculty and staff through the LSA Gateway include classroom information; councils, committees, and communities of practice; Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion information; forms and templates; guiding principles; policies and procedures; and professional development.

The introductory phase for the college-level information through the Dean's Office has been very successful. Senior Administrator for LSA Units Merlis Nolan says, "As a one stop shop for staff and faculty, the LSA Gateway provides an internal launching pad for direct, organized, and impactful information that helps all of us serve the LSA mission" to achieve preeminence in creating, preserving, and applying knowledge and academic values, and to enrich the lives of students and transform them into leaders and citizens who challenge the present and illuminate the future.

The next phase of the project is a pilot of unit portals, intranet sites for individual departments or units within the college. That phase begins this month.

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