ECC Board of Trustees

Executive Summary

Date: 4/12/18 Subcommittee: Marketing and Institutional Advancement Agenda Item: RFP Award for Consultation, Design and Configuration of the College Content Management System and Website Redesign This item is for: For Board's Approval Backup Documentation: Attached to this document

Background Information:

The Marketing & Communications Office issued a RFP for Consultation, Design and Configuration of the College Content Management System and Website Redesign. The College received proposals from fourteen vendors. Based on a review and evaluation of the responses by an internal committee it was mutually agreed to recommend the joint proposal submitted by OmniUpdate (content management system) and iFactory (web design services).

Reasons for Recommendation:

Based on the criteria of: strength of the content management system, experience of both partners working with and understanding the needs of higher education (particularly two-year community colleges), and cost and value to the College, OmniUpdate and iFactory ranked higher than all other submissions.

Fiscal Implications:

iFactory Design services: not to exceed $85,000 OmniUpdate Content Management Services Annual Contract: not to exceed $40,000 per year (3 year contract)

Funding for the initial down payment will be allocated through the existing 2017-2018 Marketing & Communications budget. The remaining payment will be allocated through the 2018-2019 capital and college operating budgets.

Consequences of Negative Action:

Diminished opportunities to improve the user experience on the College’s web site through enhanced visual design, intuitive site navigation, and ADA accessibility. Diminished opportunities to track results of targeted marketing campaigns through web site traffic.

Steps Following Approval:

Present recommendation to the Erie County Legislature’s Community Enrichment Committee for approval. Submit terms and acceptance letter to Erie County Attorney for review and approval as to form. Complete signature process.

Contact Information If Any Questions:

Paula Sandy, Director of Marketing and Communications 716-851-1868, [email protected]

OmniUpdate and iFactory Proposal For:

Response for Request for Proposal:

Consultation, Design and

Configuration of the College

Content Management System

and Website Redesign

Due Date: March 19, 2018 ELECTRONIC COPY

omniupdate.com

Cover Letter

March 19, 2018

Dear Paula and the Erie team,

On behalf of the entire staff at OmniUpdate, I’d like to thank you for this opportunity to respond to SUNY Erie Community College’s (ECC) Request for Proposal for Consultation, Design, and Configuration of the College Content Management System and Website Redesign. We understand that you are planning a major site rebuild in order to address a number of issues with the current content management system (CMS), Ektron, and to deliver a better user experience for prospective and current students, and other members of the ECC community. To meet your redesign and CMS needs, OmniUpdate proposes joining forces with our partner iFactory, to build a responsive website to help you market your programs to potential students, as well as implement a user-friendly CMS to make it easy for all your users to create, update, publish and manage content on your website.

At OmniUpdate, we have been working with SUNY schools since 2007. Currently, nearly one-third of all SUNY campuses trust OU Campus as their CMS of choice. Over the past ten- plus years, we have developed a true partnership with SUNY schools across the state, empowering SUNY web professional to not only effectively manage their websites, but also create web content that truly showcases the unique qualities of their institution. See how Stony Brook University has leveraged the power of OU Campus to spotlight alumni achievement with their 40 Under Forty website (stonybrook.edu/40underforty/).

On this proposal, OmniUpdate is partnering with iFactory. OmniUpdate has developed a great partnership with iFactory over the years. We have collaborated on numerous college and university websites to create a design and CMS experience that represents each institution. iFactory is unique in that they have worked with Higher Education clients for much of their 25-year history. This history gives them an understanding of the unique organizational structure within many Colleges and Universities. iFactory is a partner in all things and become an extension of your team, spending the time to get to know your internal structure as well as identify and research all external users of the site. With a focus on your site’s users and their goals, as well as your internal business objectives, iFactory can develop a strategy for the site that will achieve the project goals.

After your new designs are finalized, the OmniUpdate staff will implement your responsive and WCAG 2.0 AA compliant designs into OU Campus, our CMS designed exclusively for higher education. With OU Campus, all of your users, both technical and non-technical, will be able to quickly edit and publish pages to the live website Our intuitive, graphical

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interface makes it easy for non-technical users to create and edit pages, and insert images, video, social media, forms, and more. More technical users have the ability to easily edit code, add or adjust templates, and customize functionality. As a true platform solution, OU Campus offers many advanced solutions designed specifically for higher education including Faculty Directory, Course Catalog, and Emergency Alerts. Plus, OU Campus is fully extensible, so ECC can integrate with any of your existing campus solutions.

At OmniUpdate we recognize the importance of having an accessible website. That is why we have and continue to invest in accessibility tools and checks that are available within the OU Campus interface. Included in your purchase of OU Campus is both our built-in accessibility checker that supports Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 (Levels A through AAA) accessibility guidelines and OU Insights, a module that continually performs a thorough analysis of a website and reports broken links and misspellings, as well as ADA accessibility and SEO problems. With the accessibility checker and OU Insights, you will have the tools necessary to ensure that the ECC website is accessible for all your visitors.

Additionally, with our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment of OU Campus, ECC can find peace of mind in the fact that OmniUpdate handles the installation, upgrades, updates, and maintenance of OU Campus in the cloud. We also take care of the server hardware and infrastructure, so your team can focus your financial and human resources on the projects that matter the most to you.

As you consider this proposal, please feel free to reach out to me at any time with any questions that might arise. I am here to work with you to come up with the best solution for ECC. We look forward to collaborating with SUNY Erie Community College!

Sincerely,

Justin Brantley

Sales Director, OmniUpdate [email protected] 513.512.0048

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Table of Contents

Cover Letter ...... 2 Who We Are ...... 6 What is OU Campus? ...... 7 Responses ...... 8 1. A Detailed Description ...... 8 2. Background, History, and Expertise ...... 11 3. Staff Listing ...... 14 OmniUpdate Team ...... 14 iFactory Team ...... 18 4. References ...... 26 OmniUpdate References ...... 26 iFactory References ...... 27 5. Samples of similar work ...... 28 6. Itemized Project Budget ...... 36 iFactory Budget ...... 36 OmniUpdate Budget ...... 38 Timeline ...... 40 7. Evaluation process and timeline ...... 40 iFactory Process ...... 40 OmniUpdate Process ...... 55 8. Solutions, Timelines & Cost ...... 57 9. Editorial Calendar & Workflow ...... 59 10. Content Migration ...... 60 11. Cloud Based Hosting ...... 60 12. Training ...... 60 13. Capabilities and Requirements ...... 64 Content Creation and Editing ...... 64 Meta Data Management ...... 69 Social Media ...... 70 4

SEO ...... 72 Accessibility ...... 74 Analytics ...... 76 Design and Templates ...... 79 Navigation ...... 81 Roles and Users ...... 82 Workflow and Governance...... 84 Integration ...... 88 Appendix A: Sample Statement of Work ...... 90 Appendix B: OmniUpdate Service Level Agreement –Software-as-a-Service License ...... 92 Exhibit B ...... 101

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Who We Are

At OmniUpdate, we're a diverse team of passionate individuals who are dedicated to making the lives of our customers easier through technology and innovation. Our roots in the software development industry were planted back in the early 1980s, and we entered the web content management system (CMS) market in 2001 with what would become our best-selling solution, OU Campus™—a web-based, feature-rich CMS designed specifically for the higher education community. Since then, we've become the leading web CMS provider for higher education.

Our business is driven by five core pillars: Focus on higher education While our competitors have chosen to compete in multiple verticals, we have made the strategic decision to focus exclusively on colleges and universities just like ECC. We have conducted primary research into the needs of students, parents and administrators. We know the higher education ecosystem and all the relevant regulations. OU Campus is the only CMS focused exclusively on you. Industry Leadership Over the last 17 years, we have become the most used CMS in higher education. Because of our scale, we can invest more than our competitors in R&D; more in Customer Support; and more in innovation. We work with more higher education partners and industry experts than any other CMS provider. Plus, we host by far the largest user conference every year. We keep investing in order to help you—and us—learn, share, and grow. Customer Support At OmniUpdate, customer support is in our DNA. Based right here in the U.S., our Customer Support team is three times larger than our nearest competitor. Our award-winning team has a zero on-hold phone policy and a 30-minute average response time for tickets. Ease of Use We focus relentlessly on the user experience because we know how important it is for OU Campus to be intuitive for all your users, regardless of technical ability. We sift through massive amounts of usage data and work with customer-led focus groups to perfect OU Campus and its ease of use for everyone's benefit. Total Solution Our professional services team will work with you every step of the way through implementation -- we’ve performed hundreds over the years. As your content management needs grow, we will grow with you, through added modules, external apps, and open APIs that allow for deep integration and customization. Plus, with our GitHub repository, you can even add functionality and modules on your own for free with starter code.

With over 70 full-time employees dedicated to making the best CMS around, we’ve seen all the web content management challenges there are and with our experience, we can help ECC successfully manage your site, too. 6

What is OU Campus?

OU Campus, OmniUpdate’s enterprise web content management solution designed exclusively for higher education, enables authorized staff to make the changes necessary to keep your web presence fresh, accurate, and up-to-date. At the heart of the system is a file permission and approval process, giving administrators the ability to assign editing privileges to authorized contributors. Additional control is built into the multi-stage workflow/approval system. OU Campus offers administrators an easy to use role-based privilege system allowing a wide variety of users with varied skill sets access to the appropriate content. OU Campus is completely Internet browser-based and requires no separate application to be installed.

OU Campus provides a platform for long-term content development and accountability, empowering content contributors with an intuitive editing interface while providing administrators a flexible environment to create customized solutions for all campus departments.

Many colleges and universities use OU Campus to create, edit, publish and manage their websites, including the following SUNY schools:

• Alfred State College • Niagara County Community College

• Binghamton University • North Country Community College

• Clinton Community College • Stony Brook University

• Downstate Medical Center • SUNY Cobleskill

• Dutchess Community College • SUNY Delhi

• Farmingdale State College • Suffolk County Community College

• Fashion Institute of Technology • The College at Brockport

• Nassau Community College • Ulster Community College

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Responses 1. A Detailed Description

A detailed description of responses to the requirements and how responses will best help SUNY Erie achieve the goals and objectives of this RFP.

Introduction At OmniUpdate, we understand that ECC is undergoing a major website change and is seeking the joint services of a CMS provider and website design firm. That is why we are teaming up with our partner, iFactory, to offer you a complete website solution including a comprehensive redesign and new CMS. As an expert in higher education iFactory will lead ECC through the design process to create a site that showcases your programs to attract potential students. Once iFactory and ECC have finalized the design, the OmniUpdate team will fully implement the new designs and train your users in OU Campus.

Design

iFactory has itendtified the various goals and requirements and developed solutions that would ultimately help reach your goals and objectives:

• Responsive Design – iFactory incorporates responsive design in each and every site we launch. We will design a responsive framework and deliver mockups in mobile sizes for approval. Full process in the section below.

• Newly designed homepage and 10 -12 key landing pages – per the Q&A ‘fewer templates are acceptable as long as they are flexible enough to meet the needs of the specified intent of each area of the website’ To save budget for SUNY Erie we proposed a homepage template, 2 TBD templates to be decided during ‘Discovery’ and Design, and one modular template with flexible ‘objects’ to create a variety of pages. With these templates you will also have the OmniUpdate ‘out of the box’ modules designed in your approved ‘look and feel’. These elements will give your team the necessary tools to create unique pages to meet your needs.

• Improved navigation throughout the site – By creating User Personas of your identified user audiences, the site will be architected to create a user friendly navigation with clear pathways for users. 8

• Website design with a variety of features, widgets, modules that are flexible to accommodate the changing needs of the College – Our scope includes the design elements needed to create a variety of templates to accommodate changing needs of the college

• Clear messaging and engaging design – Through ‘Discovery’ and Art Direction we will uncover SUNY Erie’s messaging and design elements that convey your unique brand.

• Extend SUNY Erie’s brand assets and design elements – We have extensive experience working with Higher Education and their established brand assets

• The chosen Vendor must demonstrate they have an understanding of the needs of SUNY Erie and its stakeholders. The work done by the partners should be customized to SUNY Erie and its stakeholders needs and should be designed to fit SUNY Erie (not a modified general template) – Our ‘Discovery’ process will give our Web Strategist a clear and unique picture of who SUNY Erie Community College is. Our process includes interviewing Stakeholders and conducting a user survey which will inform our Strategic plan. The Strategic plan and subsequent Art Direction will be customized to your unique message. Nothing about our process is ‘generalized’ or template, SUNY Erie’s wireframes, designs, modules, user personas, etc. will all be based upon what we’ve learned from YOU. Content Management System

As a full-service CMS vendor, the OmniUpdate team will plan and develop your instance of OU Campus using your newly redesigned responsive and compliant designs provided by iFactory, advise on best practices for migration, and provide training for your administrators and trainers. At OmniUpdate, we build custom templates based on your designs. Our robust template structure based on HTML/CSS/etc. and XSL makes any code deployment or changes quick and easy for the ECC team. We will work closely with you to ensure that ECC’s deployment of OU Campus is customized to your needs and is ready-to-use at site go-live. Once implemented, our award-winning Customer Success team will be available to provide technical support and answer any questions that may arise.

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With our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment of OU Campus, ECC can find peace of mind in the fact that OmniUpdate handles the installation, upgrades, updates, and maintenance of OU Campus in the cloud. We also take care of the server hardware and infrastructure, so your team can focus your financial and human resources on the projects that matter the most to you. Additionally, OmniUpdate can arrange production web server hosting through one of our trusted hosting partners. All of our hosting partners offer industry standard security and disaster recovery.

With OU Campus, all of your users have the tools at their fingertips to get the job done. Our intuitive WYSIWYG editor allows content editors to easily make the edits they need. As changes are made, they can be entered into a seamless workflow approval process before publication, so you can be sure that your content is vetted before it goes live. Plus, using our scheduling features, ECC can implement your editorial calendar. Users can schedule for content to be updated or expired and receive automatic reminders alerting them for the need for changes. And, with our centrally located reusable content features, content changes can be made once and applied everywhere, so you no longer have to worry about errors or missing information.

Moreover, OU Campus enables ECC’s marketers to have control over items such as URLs, analytics, and SEO. OU Campus provides marketers with the ability to create and track URLs that are keyword, search, and user friendly. ECC marketers have complete control over the filenames, allowing your site to have user- and SEO- friendly URLs. Plus, OU Insights (included in your purchase) analyzes your site and gives SEO recommendations for topics including duplicate titles, missing titles, long titles, short titles, duplicate descriptions, and missing descriptions. This ensures that all your pages are optimized for high search rankings.

Some of the other great out-of-the-box features with OU Campus include:

• WYSIWYG Editor • Image galleries and • Drag-and-drop Image editing • In-context editing • New Page Wizards • Instant Publishing • Multi-Output • Multi-Browser • Multi-Channel Preview Preview Output

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• Spell Check • Link Check • Accessibility Check • Flexible Workflows • Versioning • Multi-Target Publish • Source Code Editing • WebDAV integration • APIs • Social media • 11 Customizable • Integration with integration user levels Google Analytics • Reusable Assets • Robust Permissions • Forms

Additionally, OU Campus includes a number of features to help ECC keep your site accessible for all users. Our built-in accessibility checker supports Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 (Levels A through AAA) accessibility guidelines. We are also including OU Insights, our module that continually performs a thorough analysis of a website and reports broken links and misspellings, as well as ADA accessibility and SEO problems. With the accessibility checker and OU Insights, you will have the tools necessary to ensure that the ECC website is accessible for all your visitors.

With the OU Campus platform, ECC can take advantage of all the functionality you require including course catalog, campus calendar, faculty directory, emergency alerts, and more. Plus, OU Campus seamlessly integrates with third-party web services and applications and other databases, so that you can pull all the information and data you need into the CMS.

By teaming with iFactory and OmniUpdate, leaders in higher education, you can rest assured knowing that your website goals will not only be met, but exceeded.

2. Background, History, and Expertise

An outline of both firms’ background and experience including the year the partner companies were founded, along with a brief history of each company.

OmniUpdate’s History OmniUpdate was founded in 1982 and incorporated in California by software pioneers Tom Nalevanko and Yves Lempereur. With a series of best-selling software products like desktop applications MacFlow™ and WinFlow™, the company broke new ground in several key areas, including network file exchange protocols and human interface.

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In the early 90s, President and CEO Lance Merker joined the team, refocusing our company’s strengths in the web applications marketplace. In 2001 we entered the web content management system (CMS) market with what would become our best- selling solution, OU Campus™—a web-based, feature-rich CMS designed specifically for the higher education community.

OmniUpdate Background and Expertise Since 2001, we've become the leading web CMS provider for higher education. With the most higher education customers, we understand the higher education business and its challenges better than any other CMS provider. We continue to develop and offer the most innovative solutions in the industry, and we have an unwavering commitment to provide a superior customer experience, resulting in unrivaled customer retention and satisfaction. Our awards for product and customer service year after year are proof of that commitment.

Over the past 15-plus years, we have implemented thousands of websites for hundreds of colleges and universities. With nearly 100,000 users of OU Campus, we have a well-established community of higher education professionals. Through our user experience research, user feedback forum, user training conferences, and regular interactions with our customers, we are always listening for the challenges that the higher education community faces in order to continue to expand our platform to meet your evolving needs.

Our ecosystem includes the most higher education partners and industry experts, including leading marketing, recruitment, web design, and technology companies. This ecosystem combined with our industry expertise makes us a total solution provider. We offer as much help as you need—from creating custom templates, migrating your content, and deciding on deployment and hosting, to in-depth training, on-going support, and so much more. We're not just a vendor, we're your partner. iFactory’s History

Founded in 1992, our mission is to serve schools, publishers and not-for-profit institutions through the conception and execution of innovative, inspiring, and intelligent interactive solutions.

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We do our best work for top-tier organizations who require interactive strategy, architecture, design, and development of the highest caliber.

As the Boston area’s longest serving interactive agency, we have for decades helped to develop core processes and methodologies used throughout the profession. iFactory’s Experience and Expertise

For over 20 years, we have served higher education, publishing, mission-driven not- for-profits, and healthcare.

• Over 400 successful client relationships throughout the US and Europe • 90% client return rate for additional engagements • Fusion of interactive technology and design • Focus on organizations who do good in the world • Deliver highly usable, bulletproof technical solutions • Innovate and create best practices using thinking from all verticals • 25 Full-time web professionals, over 75 full-time integrated communications staff • Average experience level; 10+ years in interactive experience iFactory was acquired in 2004 by the RDW Group, New England’s largest independent agency located in Providence, RI. RDW is a privately-held, profitable business that has thrived for over 25 years. iFactory currently is located at 87 Summer Street, Boston, we also have an office of Drupal Developers located in Portland, Maine.

We are driven by partnership. While many companies can produce websites, we believe the best solutions emerge when we align cultures with our clients, understand how you work, and partner through a process of discovery together.

Becoming an extension of your team allows us to tailor creative solutions that solve your problems in a way that reflects the essence of your core values and mission.

To make partnership work, Account Services Managers, Producers, and Lead Practitioners are committed to being in constant communication, augmenting and complementing your core team.

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3. Staff Listing

Provide a detailed listing of staff expected to be involved in the project, including project managers and design team members. Provide a brief summary of their relevant training and work experience related to the proposed project.

OmniUpdate Team The OmniUpdate team will work with ECC at every step of the way. All of our team members are highly trained professionals who have extensive knowledge of OU Campus and spend all their time working to meet the needs of higher education professionals. Many members of our team have worked together for many years to ensure customer satisfaction at every step of the way, from planning to implementation, training, and support.

Account Managers

Justin Brantley, Sales Director

Justin is OmniUpdate’s Sales Director for the US North Region. With over 7 years of experience in higher education, he has a passion for helping institutions achieve their specific goals such as increasing student enrollment, aiding in direct marketing efforts, and enabling schools to use their website most effectively. He will work with ECC to come up with the solution that is right for you.

Michael Monina, Senior Account Manager

Michael Monina joined OmniUpdate in 2001 and has become an integral part of a team that developed a software-as-a- service (SaaS) model for web content management. He has been instrumental in developing the company’s focus on higher education. His current responsibilities are as a Senior Account Director. Michael has extensive experience with

assisting customers achieve their website goals and objectives.

Implementation Our experienced Implementation team is tasked with ensuring that your project is completed smoothly and professionally. Your team will have full access to our

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Professional Services team, which is fully equipped to answer and questions and solve any issues you may have during our implementation process. OmniUpdate’s implementation process includes three phases for the successful completion of your OU Campus CMS deployment: Planning, Development, and Transition to Support.

Dennis Esguerra, Vice President of Customer Success

Dennis leads the OmniUpdate team to oversee the entire customer journey from implementation, training and long- term support. In his role, he is focused on ensuring your school’s entire OU Campus experience not only meets but exceeds your expectations. As Vice President of Customer Success, Dennis will work with his team to ensure you

maximize the benefits of OU Campus, address any questions you may have in a timely and professional manner, and most importantly, ensure your overall success with the use of OU Campus!

Marcel Ayers, Director of Web Development

As the Director of Web Development, Marcel is responsible for overseeing the implementation process from start to finish. He works closely with project management, delivery managers, and web developers to ensure the successful rollout of OU Campus for your institution. He has overseen the successful onboarding of over 250 institutions and implementation of over a thousand CMS projects.

Delivery Managers One of our highly experienced Delivery Managers is chosen to best match your institution’s needs to their unique talents. Tim Ballard, Julia Baker, and Christian Nightingale are skilled project managers with outstanding customer service relations. Your Delivery Manager is responsible for all communications with regard to the implementation process and your day-to-day requests. They oversee the process in which your website is integrated into OU Campus.

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Tim Ballard, Delivery Manager

In his role as Delivery Manager, Tim is responsible for all of the day-to-day communication with ECC during the implementation process. Tim has immense experience as a CMS expert, having worked with businesses and their technical teams in order to effectively communicate with clients and complete projects efficiently. He will oversee your website’s transition into OU Campus, allowing your project to fall in line with your goals and answering any questions you may have along the way.

Julia Baker, Delivery Manager

Julia joined the OmniUpdate team in 2013 and has more than eight years of customer service, project management, and web experience. In her different roles at OmniUpdate, Julia has worked on hundreds of projects. As your Delivery Manager she will collaborate with your team to ensure that your implementation is completed in a professional and timely manner and meets all your expectations.

Christian Nightingale, Delivery Manager

In his role as Delivery Manager, Christian is responsible for communication with your institution regarding any questions or concerns you may have. With more than two decades of experience in client relations, Christian will be readily available to ECC during the implementation phase and will respond to day to day requests in a timely and professional manner. With his excellent customer service and interpersonal skills, he will help ECC transition into OU Campus as simple and efficiently as possible.

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Training Our Training Team is responsible for coordinating and conducting training on OU Campus for your staff. Our trainers will empower your team by demonstrating the features of OU Campus and how your staff will use them on a day-to-day basis. They work with your staff to ensure you feel comfortable using OU Campus so that you can share your newly acquired knowledge with your end users.

Barbara McQuillan, Software Trainer

Barbara arrived at OmniUpdate in June of 2017 with a decade of instructional design and presentation experience as a high school physics teacher. She has loved her transition into customer- and employee- training because the curriculum is immediately applicable to the learner’s job success. In her free time, Barbara continues to hone her technical skills in web design and development to grow her knowledge to be your go- to resource.

Brandon Scheirman, Software Trainer

As a Software Trainer at OmniUpdate, Brandon’s primary goal is to make you feel comfortable and empowered as you start working with OU Campus. With a background in communication and three years’ experience in OmniUpdate’s Training department, he will work hard to ensure your questions are answered and your curiosities are satisfied; he guarantees you’ll have fun doing it.

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Support Your Customer Success team of in-house OmniUpdate employees is readily available to help you with any OU Campus questions or concerns. Their zero-hold phone policy ensures that you receive help when it’s needed.

Robert Kiffe, Alejandra Christopher Gezelle Omar Flores, Customer, Iorgulescu, Zack, Segundera, Customer Support Lead Customer Lead Customer Customer Support Engineer Support Support Support Technician Technician Technician Specialist

iFactory Team

Andrea Palumbo, Senior Producer

“Once you establish a partnership with your client, the project becomes truly rewarding. It creates a healthy project environment and can make each step in the process more efficient and enjoyable.” Role and Experience Producer, project manager, day-to-day contact. Six years experience in account services, project management, and marketing Higher Education Clients

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Boulder Valley School District, Santa Barbara Community College, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Touro University Nevada, Illinois Valley Community College, Elgin Community College Clients Partners Education BSBA Endicott College, International Business

Pete Gaioni, VP, Account Services/Strategy

“I honestly love my job. I get immense satisfaction out of talking to my clients, hearing what keeps them up at night, discovering how their organizations work, and passing along a good overview of mission critical priorities in context to my team. Perhaps my favorite part of my job is talking to users – interviews, focus groups, surveys – and figuring out how to balance their needs with organizational priorities.”

Role and Experience Strategist and Account Services. 12 years of experience in both web and traditional marketing within a variety of vertical markets to include Higher Ed, not-for-profit, healthcare, and consumer electronics.

Higher Education Clients Stanford Graduate School of Business, Washington University St. Louis, Community College of Philadelphia, Community College of Baltimore, Princeton, Cornell Johnson, UNC Kenan-Flagler, BU Law, Yale, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Harvard, Northeastern, Wheelock, Plymouth State

Clients Graduate Management Admissions Council, IMD-Drucker

Education BA Brown University

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Caroline Roberts, Content Strategist

“Content strategy is my dream job because I get to learn a little about everything. Through working with website content, I’ve taken crash courses in the American legal system, information technology, personal finance, the United States military, and even extreme sports. With every project, I look forward to learning something new.”

Role and Experience Content strategy, writing, editing, inbound marketing. Number of years in industry: 16 years in web writing, content management, and content strategy

Higher Education Clients Bennington College, Franklin Pierce University, Lansing Community College, New England Law School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Rutgers Undergraduate Admissions, Springfield Technical Community College, St. Cloud Technical and Community College, St. Louis Community College, SUNY Empire

Clients Boston Medical Center, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, LeMaitre Vascular, SWOG

Education BA Vanderbilt University, English MA University of California at Irvine, English

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Ashley McQuaid, Senior User Experience Designer

“No two clients are the same, and I love getting to know each one individually to create something especially for them. I enjoy digging into complex problems and discovering new ways to adapt my knowledge for each project’s unique needs. By far, the best parts of my job are watching users successfully interact with our work, and creating alongside institutions that make an incredible impact in their communities.”

Role and Experience Information architect, user experience and interaction designer, usability consultant and researcher. 6+ years in digital multi-device design for websites and applications.

Higher Education Clients Alabama A&M, ASU Beebe, Bennington College, Coastal Carolina University, Colorado State College of Business, Central Wyoming College, Florida Gulf Coast University, Flagler College, Framingham State, Harvard Baker Library, Harvard Institute of Politics, Hillsborough CC, Houston CC, Hudson Valley CC, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, MIT Digital Learning, Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies, Rutgers Newark, Santa Barbara City College, Stanford Graduate School of Business, St. Cloud Technical & Community College, St. Louis CC, SUNY Empire State College, Tidewater CC, USC School of Cinematic Arts

Clients American Academy of Pediatrics, Harvard Colonial North America Project, InterSystems Corporation, Justice Resource Institute, Perkins School for the Blind

Education BFA with Honors Rochester Institute of Technology, New Media Design & Imaging

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Jeremy Perkins, Director of UX and Design

“I live at the intersection of design and technology, where great ideas are executed."

Role and Experience Creative direction, concept generation, UI/UX design, and front-end development. Rooted in the heritage of graphic design and fluent with technology, Jeremy is known for his creative excellence, responsive design expertise, and attention to usability and accessibility. 18 years in design, technology, and client services

Higher Education Clients Rutgers University Undergraduate Admissions, Bennington College, St. Louis Community College, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Cornell Engineering, College of Education at Illinois, Harding University, Colorado State University College of Business, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Wharton School of Business, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Clients Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Perkins School for the Blind, Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston, VirZOOM, SAGE Publications, National Consumer Law Center

Education BFA Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

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Greg Crist, Designer

“Design to me is a confluence of art and utility. Creating memorable visual experiences while crafting useful tools for the site user is a puzzle I enjoy solving. I love collaborating with clients to more effectively tell their story and accomplish their goals."

Role and Experience Visual Designer. Number of years in the industry: 12

Clients University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH), Community College of Baltimore County, Coastal Carolina University, Cornell Johnson, New England Law, Massachussetts College of Art, Lehigh College of Education, MIT Office of Digital Learning, Helen Keller School

Education MFA Massachusetts College of Art, Painting and Printmaking

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Iona Holloway, Designer

“Make it work. Make it beautiful.”

Role and Experience Visual Designer. Number of years in the industry: 3

Higher Education Clients Rutgers Business School, Florida Gulf Coast University, St Louis Community College, Houston Community College, Flagler College, Tacoma Community College

Clients GVPi, The Colonial North America Library at Harvard

Education BA - Journalism + Psychology, Syracuse University MS - Advertising (creative track), Boston University Portfolio year - Painting and Printmaking, Glasgow School of Art

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Laurence Burningham, Director of Web Development

“I enjoy working with clients to distill what their needs are and leveraging technology to fulfill their goals ”

Role and Experience Director of Web Operations, overseeing technical implementation. Number of years in the industry: 20+ years in web development working with b2c, b2b, non-profits, and education.

Higher Education Clients The Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business, Yale ITS, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), University of Massachusetts, Princeton Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, MassArt

Clients Harvard Institute of Politics, Partners Healthcare

Education BA University of Maine

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4. References

The partner companies must provide a minimum of three references, with contact information, and a brief description of work done for those clients. A focus should be placed on work performed for clients in higher education.

OmniUpdate References Please feel free to reach out to any of the following OmniUpdate references:

• SUNY Nassau Community Maryam Mirza, IT Manager 516.572.7222 ext. 28877 [email protected] SUNY Nassau has been an OmniUpdate customer since 2009. Maryam can speak to the work of our Professional Services department as well as multiple services and modules, including Faculty Directory, Course Catalog, OU Insights, OU Blogs, and OU Search.

• SUNY Stony Brook Community College Lynn Zawie, Web Content Coordinator 631-632-4429 [email protected] Stony Brook University has been an OU Campus customer since 2007. With hundreds of users, they can speak to the scalability and reliability of OU Campus. Additionally, using OU Campus developers at Stony Brook have created a number of unique sites that showcase their faculty and alumni. Through OU Campus, Stony Brook has created and maintains Stony Brook's 40 Under Forty Alumni spotlight website (stonybrook.edu/40underforty/) and Stony Brook Experts (stonybrook.edu/experts/), a guide that provides news media representatives with a resource to identify and connect with Stony Brook University professionals who can provide expertis e, analysis, and commentary on a wide variety of news and research topics.

• SUNY Farmingdale State College Sylvia Navarro-Nicosia, Director of Web Programming and Development 631-420-2529 [email protected] Farmingdale has been an OU Campus customer since 2010. Sylvia is a regular attendee of our annual OUTC conference. She has also given presentations on

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how to successfully redesign your website using OU Campus.

• SUNY Suffolk County Community Michael Forte, Website Manager 631.451.4248 [email protected] A customer since 2015, SUNY Suffolk has a team of under 25 users maintaining their website. Their site includes OmniUpdate modules including Faculty Directory, Course Catalog, and OU Blogs.

iFactory References For more information and samples of iFactory’s work, please see below.

• Arkansas State University Beebe Janet Liles Associate Vice Chancellor of Information Technology and Assessment [email protected] 501.882.4509

• New Mexico Institute of Technology and Mining David Lapre [email protected] 575.835.5091

• Lansing Community College Kevin Bubb CIO [email protected] 517.483.9764

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5. Samples of similar work

Samples of similar types of work performed for other clients.

Queens University of Charlotte http://www.queens.edu/

Technical Details: Designed by iFactory for the OmniUpdate Content Management System

Challenges pre-redesign:

• Information Architecture mirrored the internal organization chart, not user friendly, no calls to action and no clear paths to information or admission information • Content Bloat, too much old, unused content adding to the confusing navigation • Not mobile responsive • Social media under-utilized, not meaningfully incorporated into the site.

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• Seeking ‘differentiation’ as a private school with median rankings Queens University needed to showcase what makes them unique and special • Site was on an outdated CMS, Ingeniux from 2009

How we Helped:

• Through a full process of Information Architecture and creation of Personas the site now as clear calls to action and clear user paths - to drive enrollment • Differentiate - site design focuses on their strengths to elevate their brand ie: 9:1 Student ratio, tailored experience for non-traditional adult students and their study abroad program. • We introduced OmniUpdate CMS and the site was rebuilt on the Omni platform, the internal team was thrilled with the internal changes around workflow. • Full Content Strategy to pare down their site by archiving much of the old, unused content and assisting with writing services for the new site.

“Working with your team has been wonderful. I actually miss you guys. Your work, people, and customer service have all been excellent. Thank you! I'm really excited about where we're heading!”

Jen McGivney, Digital Media Director Queens University

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Arkansas State University Beebe http://www.asub.edu/

Technical Details: Designed by iFactory for the OmniUpdate Content Management System

Challenges pre-redesign:

• Extremely outdated, cluttered, amateur website, not reflective of the school or the brand • Recognizing internally the website as an ongoing effort • Streamlining content; moving internal content to intranet • Training / building community of practice • Governance

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How We Helped:

• Helped prospective students find programs and academic pathways via their own interests • Visually refocused brand story on differentiators (lovely campus, dorms = unusual for community college) • Helped hone messaging to focus on high-touch experience • Simplified verbiage to lower barriers to adoption (e.g., cashier’s office, not Bursar) • Created a simple workflow and governance model to suit their culture and structure

iFactory, does an outstanding job in bringing the website vision alive. Each member of the team is committed to the project objectives. Through an on site discovery process, iFactory listened and created personas that have been instrumental to the success of the project. Pete and his team followed through and communicated each step of the way. We are so pleased with our design from iFactory!

- Janet Liles, Associate Vice Chancellor of IT Services

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Franklin Pierce University http://www.franklinpierce.edu/

Technical Details: Built on OmniUpdate CMS platform, the front-end design, UX, content strategy and html was done by iFactory.

FPU desired a new website with the following goals:

• Enhance marketing and user experience • Engage prospective clients and improve customer experience with a focus on Admissions, retention, gift giving, Alumni, donor and prospective students. • Wanted the site communicate events, recent news not only with text but with pictures and multimedia.

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For the designs and IA we brought in lots more space for imagery and aimed to create a friendly, supportive voice to get across the personality of the school as a place where you could go and have a community who would meet you where you are. They have good academic support for a lot of different learning needs, a lot of it personalized, and we wanted to highlight that differentiator.

“ Working with iFactory was fabulous in all regards of developing a new website design. The process was well organized and the iFactory team listen carefully to our requests and responses. As a result we have a bold and spectacular site which has been launched this summer and receiving rave reviews.”

Nathaniel Peirce, COO

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North Arkansas College - www.northark.edu

Technical Details: On Percussion Software CMS, back-end developed by Percussion

North Arkansas College is a public two-year college offering transfer and technical degree programs, one-year technical certificates, certificates of proficiency, customized business and industry training, adult basic education (GED) classes and non-credit community education courses.

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Goals of this project included:

• New and improved Information Architecture • Responsive Design for mobile devices • Improved communication of career and technical program information • A design and structure to attract prospective credit seeking or non-credit seeking students iFactory worked closely with the core North Arkansas team in Discovery to uncover their goals and aspirations for the newly redesigned site. Discovery included meeting all departments of the College as well as meeting students and touring the various campuses to understand the full scope of the College. The outcome is a vastly improved website that elevates the North Arkansas brand and inspires prospective students in that community to learn more about an education at North Arkansas College. iFactory conducted Discovery through HTML front-end development and the site was developed in Percussion CMS. The College is extremely pleased with the new site.

"You guys are awesome!....We really appreciated the project management and Basecamp as a tool....We appreciated that you guys followed the RFP, which most vendors don't do. And because of the new site, we went from having to beat down doors to get content, to having departments coming to us to be promoted on the website...especially after they learned that welding was filled in no time."

“We’re up 5.01% the first time enrollment has risen in four consecutive years of decline. We’re excited!”

Micki Somers

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6. Itemized Project Budget

Detailed cost and timeline breakdown, including any implementation fees and annual price increases for services and maintenance for a three (3) year period. iFactory Budget

Discovery • Kickoff, on-site at SUNY Erie Community College • Strategy Questionnaire • Documentation & Analytics Review • User Surveys, one • Stakeholder Interviews, three • Content Inventory • Strategy Brief Information Architecture, User Experience, Content, and Visual Design • User Personas, 3 • Sitemap, up to three levels at two rounds • Full-Page Wireframes, 4, including Content Objects, at two rounds • Functional Specification, at two rounds • Content Planning • Art Direction, one round • Look-and-Feel, 3 homepage comps with the selected being refined over two additional rounds • Pattern Template, up to two rounds • Keyscreens, 2 over two rounds – Designs delivered also include the Omni modules that are included with your CMS Platform, we have worked with Omni to ensure that all elements will have designs based upon your approved Art Direction. • Responsive design framework over two rounds • Design documentation HTML5 with CSS3 • 4 responsive templates • Browser testing • QA 36

Ongoing Project Management • Ongoing communication • Weekly status meetings Total Front-end project price: $83,195 iFactory ongoing sustainability / maintenance: Effective websites require ongoing maintenance and monitoring for content, design, functionality, usability, and accessibility. Continue to meet your users' needs by adapting to a digital environment in which standards, browser versions, and new devices are constantly changing. Items include: • Analytics & KPIs • Accessibility Check • Strategic Site Planning • Nuts & Bolts: SEO, redirects, site log, and performance tuning • Usability and use-case review • Editorial Review and Content Writing • Design and Branding Reveiw • Training

$7,500 per quarter.

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OmniUpdate Budget OmniUpdate is offering our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment of OU Campus. With the SaaS product, OmniUpdate hosts the CMS in the cloud. We are also providing an option for production web server hosting. The pricing below is special promotional pricing available exclusively to SUNY institutions before June 30, 2018. We value our relationship with all SUNY schools and are providing ECC with a cost effective means to join the OU Campus cloud.

OU Campus SaaS Solution Annual Costs OU Campus Tier 1 (1-50 User License) $10,000 Support - Basic $5,000 OU Insights – License (5,000 pages) Included Subtotal $15,000

One-time Costs Implementation Included OU Insights – Implementation Included Training Included Subtotal $0

SaaS Solution Summary Year 1 – includes OU Insights license for free $15,000 Year 2*- Includes OU Insights for $5,000 $20,300 Year 3* - Includes OU Insights for $5,000 $20,610 *3% annual license increase included

Optional Services and Modules The OU Campus platform is a true one-stop solution with the flexibility and extensibility to be expanded to fit all ECC’s needs. We have a number of modules designed exclusively for the needs of colleges and universities, including Faculty Directory, Course Catalog, Emergency Alerts, and OU Calendar. As a full-service vendor, we will implement these solutions for you. Our in-house Professional Services team of more than 25 professionals have completed thousands of projects for institutions just like you. Additionally, through our GitHub, we offer FREE starter code for many of our modules, allowing you to build all the functionality you need. Some of your services and modules include:

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GitHub Access our GitHub at any time to obtain free starter code for modules like Course Catalog, Faculty Directory and many others. We also have a professional services team to implement these modules for you.

Content Migration Our Professional Services team converts your existing website content for use within OU Campus. Services include:

configuration of automated migration scripts/tool, processing of customer-provided content, upload to OU Campus, and final QA based on customer feedback/collaboration. This can be done using our professional services team or for free using our migration script.

Emergency Alerts When an unforeseen event occurs, quickly create a custom emergency announcement, and prominently display it on your $3,000/year site for everyone to see.

Faculty Directory Enable your faculty to update their profiles with ease using form-like templates and have consistency throughout your $7,500 one-time set up fee directory. or $1,500/year

Course Catalog Guarantee your student body an accurate, timely, and readily accessible online course catalog managed by OU Campus. $25,000 one-time set up fee or $5,000/year

OU Calendar™ Keep your website in sync with all the non-stop campus activity through a fully interactive calendar that can be easily shared and $7,500 one-time set up fee filtered. or $1,500/year

Hosting provided through one of our trusted hosting partners Website/Production Server Hosting

$7,000/Year

On-site Training Included in your purchase of OU Campus is training via webinar. If desired, the OmniUpdate Training team can come to your $2,500/day + travel and campus and conduct in-person training sessions. expenses

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Timeline

IFactory and OmniUpdate estimate a timeline of approximately 6-7 months for the design of ECC’s new site and the implementation into OU Campus. This is a preliminary timeline and will depend on several factors, including the ability for ECC to supply necessary files and deliverables in a timely manner.

iFactory

OmniUpdate Finish Step 2: Training the ECC Staff

Step 1: Implementation of OU Campus Start Week 1–Week 12

7. Evaluation process and timeline

Describe your evaluation process and timelines, noting the client will provide survey data, focus group data and the results of work conducted by College sub-committees.

iFactory and OmniUpdate have worked together on dozens of projects and have implemented a collaborative process in which iFactory completes the design portion of the project and then hands the completed desings off to OmniUpdate for implementation into OU Campus.

iFactory Process The iFactory process, which has been refined for over 20 years, covers four phases:

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1. Discovery: Learning about you, your users, what makes you unique, and how you are perceived in the marketplace

2. IA/UX/Content/Design: Architecting the site, creating the overall look and feel, and suggesting content, taking into consideration your needs and your users’ needs

3. Development and Technical Partnerships: Either developing or supporting an implementation of your solution

4. Refinement: Monitoring and improving your site over time using key metrics identified during the discovery phase

Discovery

The discovery phase ensures that your project meets the goals of your organization, be it increasing enrollment, donations, content sharing, social engagement, or efficiencies that save you time and money.

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Strategy Questionnaire

Prior to kickoff, we will send your team a short questionnaire. Your answers will provide insight on your latest organizational goals, project objectives and drivers, competitors, aesthetic likes/dislikes, and technical considerations.

Documentation and Analytics Review

Our strategy team will review key documentation (as available) including:

• Current site content • Any marketing research you have done • Strategic plan • Marketing plan and brand style guide • Print collateral This review will ensure we’re getting the full picture of your organization.

User Surveys

We will create a brief survey for your team to send out to help determine the needs of your users.

If you prefer, we can create multiple surveys unique to each user group, at additional charge.

Stakeholder Interviews

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We will interview key stakeholders either 1-on-1 or in a small group setting. One of the most critical pieces of your project, these interviews ensure that your stakeholders feel heard, their needs are considered, their institutional knowledge is leveraged, their teams are represented, their support for the project is enthusiastic, and their expectations are managed.

Content Inventory

While we are getting to know your organization, we will also dive into your current site content. Using an automated process, we will generate a spreadsheet including all your site content and links. We will also include columns for you to fill out that indicate who is responsible for the content and if that content should be kept, revised, or archived for the new site. This information will help you assign responsibility to internal team members and will facilitate your content migration.

Strategy Brief

A Strategy Brief will be compiled and presented at the end of the Discovery phase. It acts as a building block for the rest of the project.

Many of our clients will share this document with non-team members as a way of building consensus for the project and confirming goals.

Information Architecture, User Experience, Content, and Visual Design

In this phase, we take what we have learned from the previous Discovery phase and reach for the creative solution that will guide site architecture, design, and content going forward.

Once we build the skeleton of the site and consider what content will go where, we will work with you to design a clear and compelling visual presence, tailored to your target audiences. By the end of this phase, the concept driving your site design will come into focus.

User Personas

We will create personas to further describe the predicted behavior of your target audience(s).

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We will include the user’s conditions, motivation, and environment when describing the task for each group.

Sitemap

After better understanding how your users will approach your website, what content they expect to see, and how users will find you through search, we will optimize how your pages are organized by creating a visual sitemap of the top three levels of your site hierarchy.

Full-Page Wireframes

Certain pages of your site have unique layouts that require additional consideration of how the page will be visually constructed. For example, your home page will be clearly differentiated from other site pages by virtue of its function; similarly, certain pages may need special crafting in order to meet the particular needs of a particular audience.

In such cases, we create high-fidelity full-page wireframes (schematics) that combine content outlines with display types to show you precisely how these tailored pages will appear.

Content Objects

We will create a standardized inventory of individual content objects that collectively form a pattern library from which the site will be built.

Functional Specification

Making sure the entire team understands the intended functionality is vital to the success of any project. A Functional Specification will detail key functionality and ensures alignment between design and build.

Content Planning

Our Content Planning offering is made up of three parts:

Content Planner

We will map the bulk of your current content to the sitemap developed by our information architects, which will show where your current content should go and

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what content you need to create. Then we will hand this plan off to you so you can begin the work of content migration and creation.

• Deliverable: a spreadsheet with current pages mapped to final sitemap

• Deliverable: a spreadsheet of URLs to lower-level content that may not fit with the sitemap

GatherContent

After the content map is finished, we recommend that you sign up for GatherContent, a subscription-based editorial tool. This tool has proven to be valuable for projects with complex editorial workflows. Signing up for your own subscription will be beneficial but is not necessary, if you do acquire a subscription, we will train you on how to use the tool. If you decide to acquire a Gather Content subscription, we will train you on how to use the tool.

• Deliverable: sample pages and templates added to GatherContent a simple content collaboration software (monthly subscription is extra cost if you chose to acquire your own subscription)

• Deliverable: a training session on how to use GatherContent

Content Guidelines

We provide guidelines for web writing, content creation, distribution, and search engine optimization so that your team benefits from iFactory’s expertise without becoming dependent long-term.

• Deliverable: guidelines for web writing, content creation, distribution, and search engine optimization

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Art Direction

In this deliverable, we collect all the visual ingredients from your brand guidelines – logo, color palette, typefaces, photography, illustrations, and existing collateral – and create a series of quick stylistic explorations to figure out what the new site’s look and feel could be.

The goal is to confirm or challenge any established brand constraints, and document aesthetic preferences. Art Direction becomes the foundation for a successful look and feel.

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Look and Feel

Working collaboratively with you, we will create a design (a.k.a. look and feel) for a homepage based on the accepted Art Direction. The design established for this page will inspire and inform the remaining screens.

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Pattern Template

The second part of Look and Feel is to establish the Pattern Template.

This page covers the design of many of the style elements needed for any page on the site: header and footer, body text and headers, bullets and numbering, quotes, sidebar navigation (if applicable with the wireframes), breadcrumbs, etc. This page will also include the design for the content objects created in the information architecture phase.

Keyscreens

Following the selection and refinement of the homepage and pattern template designs, the team will carry out the approved look and feel to other key pages that we will be designing.

Responsive Design

Responsive Design will be provided in this project and will be addressed in the design phase. iFactory will design a responsive framework, and will deliver mockups of each one at 3 sizes:

• Desktop: 1024 pixels wide • Tablet: 768 pixels wide • Phone: 320 pixels wide The design decisions made in this subset establish the responsive layout rules for the entire site. They are snapshots of moments within a fluid design. Layout adjustments between these widths will be communicated throughout development through writing, diagrams, prototypes, and/or discussion.

Our code is HTML5 and CSS3, and we will follow best practices in SEO, accessibility, and analytics. All pages will be tested on multiple platforms and browsers, including:

• Mac OS X: Chrome, Firefox, Safari 9+ • Windows*: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 11, Edge 13+ • Apple iOS 9+: Safari • Android 4.4+: Chrome The browsers with no version noted follow a continuous release process, and iFactory will test against the latest version. iFactory follows a progressive

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enhancement approach, which ties the presentation of the site to the capabilities of the browser, using fallbacks and workarounds in rare cases. This enables older browsers and devices to access to the site's content in a basic format, while allowing the latest browsers to get an enriched experience by taking advantage of new HTML5 and CSS3 features.

Design Documentation

We will document each aspect of the final designs to ensure your site can always be extended using the visual conventions which have been created.

Accessibility Standard

The SUNY Erie Community College RFP states the following accessibility requirements for this project:

The website must WCAG 2.0 AA standards upon launch and maintained throughout lifecycle.

Since accessibility compliance can be interpreted in a variety of ways, iFactory will adhere to the federal standard for Higher Education website accessibility, Section 508, which names WCAG 2.0 AA as the level of compliance that must be maintained.

To meet these standards, we take a holistic approach involving content, information architecture, design, and code.

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For your project, we will:

1. Set up clear and logical navigation structures and naming conventions

2. Provide adequate color contrast in visual design

3. Produce semantic HTML5 and include ARIA roles during development

4. Test delivered HTML using a single selected tool (such as WAVE by WebAIM, to be determined at Development Kickoff)

Please note iFactory cannot be responsible for accessibility issues that occur after you have started interacting with the site, such as taking over any administrative or hosting functions, entering content, updating code, installing security patches, software updates, etc. We also cannot guarantee the accessibility of any third-party systems.

We do offer a maintenance package that will ensure Accessibility at all times, iFactory will do regular Accessibility checks of your site and provide reporting for SUNY Erie Community College to maintain or iFactory can maintain for the long- term. Information about the maintenance package is in the pricing section of this proposal.

SEO Best Practices

Launching a search-engine-friendly site involves a number of factors in design, content, and development. Here are the baseline steps iFactory takes with every site:

1. Design the site to be responsive. Google will penalize sites that are not mobile-friendly.

2. Design headings to be hierarchical in font size, to encourage proper use within body copy. H1 is the largest and H6 is the smallest.

3. Provide very fast load times. Caching, aggregation, and compression are used appropriately to increase speed.

4. Implement a SSL certificate. Google gives a ranking boost to sites that are secure.

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5. Follow accessibility best practices and standards (WCAG 2.0 AA), which leads to more structured and indexable content.

6. Use alternative text for images (known as “alt text”) so image content can be indexed.

7. Use descriptive image and document file names so they can be indexed. For example, map-campus.png, not image0001.png.

8. Implement clean URLs based on natural menu paths. For example, http://mysite.com/section-name/page-name, not http://mysite.com/node/12345. Our clean URLs use intelligent character replacement and word removal.

9. Implement clean page