Profiles in Success: University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI — Initially, Dr. Jonathan Maybaum may not seem like the obvious architect of a web development program. In his “day job,” Maybaum serves as professor of pharmacology at the University of Michigan (U-M). But for years Maybaum was keenly aware of the growing demand for easy-to-create, customizable web applications in academia. Dissatisfied with the software tools that were available, Maybaum experimented with Apple’s WebObjects. Now, with support from the Open Source community, Maybaum’s UM.SiteMaker application is proving to be the right prescription for educators.
Maybaum was formerly the director of academic information technology at the university’s medical school. But even while serving in that capacity, his ground-breaking work in web development grew out of a much less-technical process: he simply listened to his colleagues. What he heard was that they were frustrated with the technology options presented to them.
With UM.SiteMaker I’ve greatly reduced the administration time for my website, which enables me to focus on teaching.
— Pamela Bogart, English Language Institute Lecturer, University of Michigan
“Considering that we only had a limited amount of money to develop a new web application, and could only afford a limited number of programming hours, we needed a tool that would help us get a lot done in a very short amount of time,” Maybaum adds. “WebObjects provided that for us.”
Apple Brings UM.SiteMaker to Life
In 1998 U-M was working with Apple’s Professional Services team on another web initiative. The programmers were tapped to extend their WebObjects expertise to the first UM.SiteMaker project, a pilot web application for the medical school. Based on the success of that application, U-M eventually signed a licensing agreement with Canada’s Global Village Consulting to create the subsequent versions of UM.SiteMaker.
“Global Village specializes in WebObjects programming, and they’ve done great work on UM.SiteMaker,” Maybaum says. “Now, any faculty member or other user with a basic knowledge of computers can log onto any system — be it Mac or PC — and create an interactive website in minutes.”
Data Tables Power Interactivity
The key to that interactivity, says Maybaum, is UM.SiteMaker’s Data Tables feature, which permits interactive web databases to be designed and built by users who feel comfortable working with simple spreadsheets, but who are not programmers or database administrators. As a result, “ordinary” people can define the functionality of their websites without being dependent upon programmers. Additionally, visitors to a website created with UM.SiteMaker can avail themselves of a vast range of usable information.
With UM.SiteMaker and WebObjects ... the process of web development is very distributed now and is shared by literally hundreds of people. This has greatly reduced the turnaround time necessary to make changes to our web content.
— Tim Kamps, Director of Technology, Holland Christian Schools
Objectives
- Empower nontechnical users to build web applications and customized websites
- Support unique web publishing needs through a central service
- Distribute authority for managing web content and applications
Solutions
- UM.SiteMaker application created with WebObjects
- Deployed with Mac OS X Server on two dual Xserve G5s, 1 Xserve RAID
- Apple Professional Services
Results
- Faculty, students, and staff have autonomy in private and public expression of intellectual output
- Web tools support variety of academic, research, and academic programs
- Application development has expanded to broad range of users
*The mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and represents neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.
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