Education today is an industry in flux, rapidly transforming to become more accommodating to students around the world. To modernize their approach to the digital experience and stay in step with changing expectations, many educational institutions are overhauling their approach to content management. 

With its flexibility and intuitive authoring experience, Kontent.ai is the right choice for many educational institutions. Let’s take a look at two examples from Südtiroler Informatik AG (SIAG) and The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam). They use Kontent.ai to empower content creators and serve content experiences to diverse audiences, while governing team operations to protect brand trust and integrity. 

An authoring platform helps writers create relevant content faster

In the education space, there are diverse audiences to cater to – with diverse content needs. Topics to cover range from recruiting, student services and academics to actions such as donations, advocacy, publicity, and funding. Understanding the types of content that different audiences require, when, and why is key to creating seamless digital customer experiences that resonate. 

For example, prospective members of a university community​, include students, parents and families, faculty, staff, and external partners have different content needs and journeys compared to current students, faculty, and staff. Even alumni, an additional subset of visitors, have their own requirements. From a business perspective, industry and government funders, researchers, partners, and media also have specific wants and needs. 

To create content for these disparate audiences, organizations must empower their content creators to be flexible and reactive, with minimal dependence on IT teams. This allows them to adapt to audiences’ changing behaviors and expectations for new and updated information that’s easily accessible.

Using the intuitive authoring platform in Kontent.ai, content creators plan, create, review, and publish content in a streamlined workflow. Collaborative functionality, such as comments, suggestions, and simultaneously editing, keeps the discussion in one central place – not in a long email thread – while assignments and tasks ensure the right stakeholders are involved. 

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By having a workspace specifically designed for content creators, it’s much easier to focus squarely on content, rather than worry about how it will look once it’s published. While decoupling content creation from presentation can be a bit of a mindshift at first, the content-first, headless approach ultimately helps creators deliver the right content experiences that truly fit their audiences. 

Let’s take a look at a real world example. Südtiroler Informatik AG (SIAG), the in-house IT services provider for multiple public administration organizations in South Tyrol, transitioned dozens of schools to a reusable Kontent.ai project. Previously, content was secondary to design, so technical experts were required to manage the sites. Switching to Kontent.ai has put content experts in control, allowing them to create more value for students and teachers. With Kontent.ai, users are now publishing content at a faster pace than before. 

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To learn more about how SIAG prioritizes the needs of content creators and subject matter experts, read the SIAG customer success story.

A single source of truth supports content consistency and brand trust

Managing hundreds, or even thousands, of websites is no small task for universities. Content that drives new student registrations is very different to content that enables graduates, promotes research, or serves teams within the university. However, one thing must be consistent, no matter the goal or touch point: trust in the brand. 

Trust is paramount for any educational institution. And up-to-date, accurate, and useful content is one way to secure brand perception and customer trust. But when websites are built with different solutions – or are managed across different teams – content quality and even compliance with accessibility or university standards can suffer. When visitors encounter these issues, brand trust hangs in the balance. 

As the digital experience continues to evolve, the gap between what is offered by universities and what is expected by students is also widening. For The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam), this was the challenge to solve. A public research university, VU Amsterdam consistently ranks among the top 150 universities in the world. To deliver more sophisticated digital experiences now expected by students, the university replaced disparate systems with Kontent.ai, a modern, unified solution. This has allowed them to drastically reduce content duplication and inconsistencies across student, employee, and research-based websites. 

Designing custom, repeatable website templates and reusable components in Kontent.ai, VU Amsterdam’s teams can now create new content or websites that already adhere to content guidelines and university requirements. This means a much faster time-to-market – just two or four weeks – and simply, much better content. With all content housed in one repository, teams can be nimble and strategic in their content creation, ultimately improving content consistency, accuracy, and relevancy across all digital touch points.  

“Kontent.ai allows our editors to focus on their content, while the UX team focuses on creating the best flow for all website visitors.”

Peter Olivier, Senior Information Analyst, VU Amsterdam

To learn more about how VU Amsterdam works with reusable components to scale content creation across many websites, read the VU Amsterdam customer success story.

Governance frameworks and workflows streamline processes

No matter how content is managed, it’s imperative to have a solution that can reflect a team’s unique ways of working. Operational efficiency in one central platform like Kontent.ai is a major draw for content teams managing complex content needs across a wide range of initiatives. Let’s dive into a few ways Kontent.ai helps large or distributed teams make the most of their content. 

In Kontent.ai, Collections is a powerful way to bring everyone together, while slicing and dicing operations and content in-platform: by region or language, division or department, campaign or audience, and more. By setting boundaries for content operations, educational institutions can simplify and secure content according to their specific structure. The permission model also defines which activities users can perform, and editors only need to see the content they’re allowed to update. 

Defining multiple workflows builds content governance into every process. Content governance is the consistent coordination of policies, processes, and resources associated with content. With the changing nature of what universities offer online, it’s important to agree on and map different levels of approvals for different types of content, from a blog post or course description to something more involved, like a press release or financial aid policies. Also consider that different organizational levels will have different governance priorities.

Workflows are there to help stakeholders improve their access to the right information or follow the preferred ways of working. That’s why it’s necessary for workflows to be designed specifically for specific content and teams, and easy to set up and change​. 

With the growing preference for visual communication online, asset taxonomies help educational institutions organize assets and choose the best ones to support their offerings. If the asset library is overflowing or disorganized – mixing visuals for one department with another, for example – it can be a challenge for users to find what they need. Grouping assets into categories speeds up the search, while governing asset usage for specific departments, content types, regions, or campaigns.

Learn more about content governance in this e-book, “The Global Enterprise Guide to Improving Content Management.”

Education is modernizing the digital experience

Flexibility is especially key for educational institutions as they work to modernize their offering for their communities. Having a solution like Kontent.ai opens the door for a wide range of use cases. Get inspired by the following universities, schools, and educational institutions who rely on Kontent.ai to deliver seamless and consistent experiences across channels and devices:

• Universities: University of Oxford, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Xavier University of Louisiana, UNSW Sydney, Hillsdale College, University Medical Center - Utrecht, Nottingham Trent University, The Open University, Vlerick Business School
• Schools and educational institutions: Study Group, Linda Hall Library, The Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), Südtiroler Informatik AG (SIAG), GetSetUp

What to learn more about how Kontent.ai can support your educational institution? Request a demo to connect with one of our content experts. And if your organization is part of the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) program, find Kontent.ai as the only enterprise headless CMS on Azure Marketplace.