"The Benefits of Using Web Content Management Systems"

Survey Methods

I developed three types of questions to collect information about the following topics: the individual and the organization they work for, the use of a WCMS in their organization, and the method of web publishing used if a WMCS is not. The questions I designed allowed me to analyze the benefits of WCMSs based on the length of time the system has been in use, the size of the organization and its web development team, and the type of system in use (licensed, open source, or proprietary). I asked users who do not currently use WCMSs about their web publishing methods to compare the amount of time spent creating web pages to organizations that do use WCMSs, aiming to clearly illustrate the differences and benefits of using of a WCMS versus using other methods.

Because I would be collecting data from people, I was required to seek approval of the NMT Institutional Review Board (IRB) before I could administer the survey. The IRB is designed to protect the rights of people participating in any research conducted by NMT students and personnel. The personally identifiable information I would be collecting was only to ensure the integrity of the data and would be removed from survey entries after data collection was complete. My survey was exempt from additional approvals and I was able to begin surveying participants immediately. However, the IRB did require that I inform participants I would be collecting some personally identifiable data and what I would be doing with them.

I wrote a custom PHP script, XHTML, and CSS to create the survey. The survey was hosted on a private, dedicated secure server located in Lansing, Michigan, and could be accessed at http://www.wcmsurvey.com/.

Before participants could complete the survey, they had to agree to allow data collection and provide their e-mail address; at this time their IP address was also recorded. After agreeing to the terms, one question would be displayed. After a question was completed, a JavaScript script checked the input and the next would appear.

Each participant answered either 9 or 10 of the 13 questions; if the participant answered that they used a WCMS, they would be directed to appropriate questions, if not, they would receive a different set of questions. After all questions were answered, the survey results were stored in a MySQL database on the server and all session information was destroyed. Screenshots of the survey and each question can be seen in Appendix A.

The survey was posted from Monday, November 17, 2008 at 10:00am MST, until Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 11:59 PM MST; the survey was online for ten weeks. I distributed the survey through the following Society for Technical Communication (STC) Special Interest Group (SIG) mailing lists: Single Sourcing, Usability, Online, Academics, and Instructional Design. These mailing lists reach approximately 3,500 technical communicators. I also posted the survey on the STC forums, which can be viewed by over 14,000 members.