Case Study — White Mountains Community College

We recently launched a new digital course catalog for White Mountains Community College, which we built with the goal of leveling-up their catalog’s accessibility, consistency, ease of editing, and visibility within the community. After launching, we spoke with Cari Perreault, the Academic Affairs Secretary at WMCC, about their experience working with Clean Catalog and how it has improved their content management workflow. Keep reading to hear more about our solutions to their pain points and Perreault’s thoughts on the process!

The Challenges

Prior to switching to Clean Catalog, WMCC was publishing their yearly course catalog as a PDF. This format caused issues for both accessibility and catalog content management. Students had difficulty accessing the catalog on their cell phones and tablets due to the unresponsive design of the PDF, which also lacked an integrated search function. They did not have the ability to filter by program or search for specific courses, but instead had to scroll through the lengthy PDF to find the content they needed.

Dedicated course search page on WMCC's new course catalog.

On the flipside, staff members struggled to efficiently make updates or publish new content to the catalog. All changes had to be submitted to one individual, who then edited the PDF document and republished the new catalog. This led to multiple versions of the catalog circulating and many admin hours spent on content management.

The Process

Once the WMCC staff passed off their old PDF catalog to our staff, we were able to build-out their new digital catalog within 8 weeks. We handled the content migration and data entry, allowing WMCC to be hands-off in the process. Once built out, we then delivered the site to their staff for review and went through a revision phase. Perreault appreciated the tailored approach, saying “the team at Clean Catalog has worked to customize the platform to meet our needs. There were a few things that were not present on the first roll-out of the catalog that I knew my team would need and those were added with no question!” Since we offer unlimited customizations and revisions at no cost with all catalog buildouts, this revisions process was seamless and quick to implement.

Our Solutions

While building out the new catalog, we put equal importance on creating a functional yet attractive site. Our team focused on improving accessibility, navigation, and overall design to reflect WMCC’s brand standards. Catalog content was organized by program, degree type, program, and number of credits. Our smart search function also integrates SEO to help students locate relevant information more quickly.

A section of the accounting degree on WMCC's course catalog.

We also set up user accounts for the staff members who will be directly editing the catalog. Their team decided to have a few individuals responsible for facilitating changes, which can then be easily published universally to ensure there are never multiple catalog versions circulating. The digital and PDF versions of their catalog are synced, so their staff only needs to make edits once to ensure they are published everywhere. They also have the ability to easily add new users to further delegate content management as needed.

Prior to launching the catalog publicly, we held a staff tutorial to ensure the WMCC team was comfortable and confident using the backend of their new site. Perreault also enjoyed the multi-faceted approach to ongoing catalog support, saying “anything I was struggling with there was a help video for or support. This software has made the catalog process much easier.”

Looking Ahead

Since launching their catalog, the White Mountains Community College staff has enjoyed ongoing support, improved accessibility, and more efficient catalog management. With their catalog being built in accordance with SEO best practices, their institution will be more easily found via search engines (like Google!) when prospective students search for nearby coursework. Our Clean Catalog staff will also continue releasing software and security updates automatically so that the WMCC catalog is always up-to-date and in accordance with modern web standards.

We loved working with the WMCC team and were thrilled to hear Perreault describe the process as “much easier than expected” and that she would “highly recommend” Clean Catalog to other institutions looking to upgrade their catalog system. We are excited to watch how White Mountains’s new course catalog continues facilitating easier content management and student usability in the future.