Launch of APSnet.org Shows Extensive Use of Taxonomy

8/30/2010 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

SusQtech, the association and non-profit industry’s leading provider of SharePoint solutions and training, announced today the site launch of the American Phythopathological Society.

As a scientific organization, APS made extensive use of SusQtech’s new Taxonomy Tool to tag content for very specific content searches and content aggregation, and the SusQtech Required Membership Tool to create areas of content specifically for member consumption. The organization already has plans for future enhancements and functionality.

“We are very pleased that they chose to use some of our new products like Taxonomy and Required Membership tools for its new site launch,” said SusQtech’s President Mike Steadman. “These SharePoint add-ons will enable APS members to navigate and quickly find the material that they are looking for.”

“APS wanted the taxonomy tool primarily because we are a scientific organization that groups and classifies content many different ways and this enables us to easily tag a piece of content and relate it to other content various different ways,” said Steve Kronmiller, APS’s project manager.

They see the Required Membership Tool as a means of attracting potential members.

“We offer a large collection of content that is available only to our members,” continued Kronmiller.

“We wanted to restrict access to this content to members only; however, they still wanted the content to show up in search results to alert unauthenticated members that they could access it by logging in, but also to alert non-members that there is additional information available when they join.”

The site also features Lightbox functionality to display large images throughout the site and an online store. APS’s SharePoint site integrates seamlessly with their back-end AMS system to provide user profile information and shopping cart functionality. 
Another unique feature integrates with their Journal sites which gives website visitors the ability to search for and view Journal abstracts and ultimately link to Journal articles. This allows APS to quickly and easily publish thousands of articles per year from XML data exported from its journal site.
 
“APS’s primary goals for this project were to provide its members and other visitors with a feature-rich window into their organization's offerings and member benefits, while empowering their staff with the tools to publish web content specific to their areas of responsibility, enabling them to take ownership of the web-authoring process and ensuring new, relevant information is delivered to website visitors in a timely manner,” explained Neil Bombardier, SusQtech’s project manager.