CMS Migration and Website Redevelopment Services

The Vendor is required to provide for the strategic redesign and redevelopment of its institutional website.
- The university’s current website was built on Drupal 7 and serves as the institution’s primary digital presence for prospective students, current students, faculty, staff, alumni, researchers, and community partners. 
- While the existing site has supported city for many years, it has grown complex and difficult to maintain.
- This includes AI-optimized search, chatbot functionality for recruitment and student support, and compatibility with CRM and academic calendar systems. 
- The solution should be designed with modular flexibility to enable phased implementation of these tools over time.
- Collaborate closely with city communications, marketing, and web development teams to effectively translate the refreshed brand strategy, narrative, and visual system into a new cohesive digital design system and content strategy that embodies the university’s updated visual identity, messaging framework, and tone of voice.
- Re-evaluate and rationalize which content and functions are best suited for the main institutional site versus other digital channels (for example, an intranet or internal portal).
- Develop a user-centric, accessible, and mobile-responsive website that reflects the institution’s academic excellence, community impact, and commitment to accessibility (AODA / WCAG 2.1 AA). 
- The design and functionality must prioritize the user experience across all audiences (particularly prospective students) ensuring intuitive navigation, engaging content presentation, and seamless interaction across all devices.
- This work will translate the refreshed brand identity into a cohesive digital experience encompassing design, content, and technology.
- Objectives
•    Reimagine university’s main website as the institution’s central storytelling, recruitment, and engagement platform, the primary digital expression of the refreshed brand and user experience.
•    Integrate the forthcoming brand refresh into a unified digital design system that reflects the university’s updated brand strategy, narrative, visual identity, and tone of voice, ensuring consistency across all channels.
•    Evaluate and recommend the most appropriate content management system (CMS) to meet city long-term operational, governance, and technical needs.
•    Simplify and restructure content to focus on user needs, recruitment and retention goals, and institutional priorities, guided by analytics and audience insights.
•    Develop and implement a sustainable institutional web governance framework that defines roles, permissions, and accountability for decentralized content management, ensuring quality, consistency, and brand integrity.
•    Deliver a secure, maintainable, and accessible platform that meets WCAG 2.1 AA and AODA standards and is architected for future scalability including compatibility with enterprise systems (CRM, academic calendar, student portals) and emerging AI-enabled capabilities such as intelligent search and recruitment chatbots.
- Phase 1 – Discovery & Strategy
•    Conduct stakeholder interviews and workshops to define project goals, key audiences, and success metrics with a primary focus on repositioning the institutional website as university’s student recruitment and stakeholder engagement platform rather than an all-purpose communications repository.
•    Perform a full content and analytics audit to identify strengths, gaps, and high-value materials with specific attention to identifying content that supports recruitment journeys, audience conversion, and brand storytelling and to isolating or recommending decommissioning of internal or outdated materials.
•    Collaborate with communications, marketing, and web development teams to align the digital experience with brand, messaging, and accessibility priorities to ensure the redesigned site embodies the refreshed brand strategy and narrative, reflects city distinctive value proposition, and aligns content priorities with recruitment and engagement goals.
•    Facilitate a CMS platform evaluation to determine the most suitable long-term solution (e.g., Drupal 11, WordPress VIP, or equivalent).
•    Review current workflows, governance models, and permission structures to inform future recommendations to design a future-state web governance and content ownership framework that consolidates authority under centralized communications and marketing oversight while defining limited, role-based content-editing permissions for faculties and administrative units.
- Phase 2 – Brand Integration & Experience Design
•    Translate university’s refreshed brand strategy, narrative, and visual system into a cohesive digital design system and content strategy that brings the brand to life across all user experiences. Ensure that visual and verbal elements consistently express city tone of voice, storytelling approach, and unique value proposition, as defined through the brand refresh initiative.
•    Develop wireframes and high-fidelity mock-ups for key page types (homepage, landing, program, faculty, etc.). Wireframes and prototypes should prioritize storytelling, recruitment conversion pathways, and key engagement goals for target audiences, particularly prospective students and influencers.
•    Conduct usability testing with representative audiences and refine designs based on findings. Include representative participants from primary audience groups (e.g., domestic and international prospective students, parents, guidance counsellors, partners) to validate alignment with recruitment and engagement objectives. 
•    Define tone of voice, visual hierarchy, and accessibility requirements (WCAG 2.1 AA / AODA). Ensure that content hierarchy and interaction design reinforce brand messaging priorities and highlight city academic excellence, hands-on learning, and sense of place as central storytelling themes.
- Phase 3 – Development & Implementation
•    Configure and develop the chosen CMS platform according to approved designs and architecture, ensuring alignment with university’s refreshed brand system, accessibility standards, and long-term governance framework.
•    Build modular, reusable, and accessible components and templates designed to maintain visual and content consistency across all pages and sub-sites, and to support future scalability for new features, tools, and integrations (e.g., CRM, academic calendar, or aienabled capabilities).
•    Implement editorial workflows, permissions, and publishing tools for distributed content management in accordance with the approved institutional web governance framework, ensuring appropriate role-based permissions and centralized oversight by communications and marketing.
•    Integrate analytics, search, and authentication systems (e.g., google analytics 4, site improve, SSO). Integrate analytics, search, and authentication systems (e.g., google analytics 4, site improve, SSO), with infrastructure designed to accommodate enhanced search capabilities and emerging AI-driven tools for recruitment and user engagement. 
•    Collaborate with communications, marketing, and web development, and other teams as identified, to migrate or rewrite approved content prioritized in phase 1, ensuring adherence to the refreshed brand voice, messaging framework, and content strategy. 
- Phase 4 – Quality Assurance & Launch Preparation
•    Conduct functional, accessibility, and performance testing across devices and browsers.
•    Facilitate user acceptance testing (UAT) and document feedback and resolutions, and engage representative internal stakeholders (e.g., communications, recruitment, web development) to validate functionality, navigation, and content presentation against project goals.
•    Optimize site speed, SEO, and accessibility prior to launch.
•    Verify site security, privacy compliance, and integration performance across all connected systems (e.g., authentication, analytics, CRM).
•    Prepare a comprehensive launch and rollback plan with roles and responsibilities.
- Phase 5 – Training & Knowledge Transfer
•    Deliver comprehensive, role-based training for administrators, content editors, and developers across university’s multi-campus environment, tailored to the new governance model and content workflows.
•    As part of the governance model, support the establishment and design of an ongoing community of practice for web content contributors, coordinated by city web development team. The community will identify and maintain an up-to-date roster of approved content contributors from each faculty, department, and unit; deliver onboarding and refresher training on authoring standards and governance protocols; and convene regular (e.g., monthly) sessions to share updates, troubleshoot issues, and promote best practices in content management, accessibility, and brand alignment.
•    Provide comprehensive documentation covering system architecture, content authoring standards, governance protocols, and workflow approvals to ensure consistent, compliant, and brand-aligned content management. 
•    Support the implementation of a new content workflow and approval framework, ensuring quality control, accessibility compliance, and clear accountability for content ownership across units.
•    Ensure internal teams are fully equipped to independently manage content, perform accessibility and quality reviews, and uphold governance standards post-launch through clear documentation, ongoing support, and capacity-building.
- Phase 6 – Post-Launch Support & Optimization
•    Provide 30–60 days of post-launch technical and content support, including monitoring, issue resolution, and consultation with communications, marketing, and web development teams to ensure stability, governance adoption, and content accuracy.
•    Track analytics, user behavior, and content performance to evaluate user engagement, recruitment outcomes, and alignment with city refreshed brand strategy and key digital objectives.
•    Deliver data-informed recommendations for ongoing optimization, accessibility improvements, and content lifecycle management to support sustained governance, compliance, and audience engagement.
•    Offer optional annual maintenance and accessibility audit services. Include optional advisory support for governance evolution, community of practice facilitation, or refresher training as part of city ongoing digital governance program.

- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: December 05, 2025