Content Ownership & Content Review

Shared responsibility for maintaining W&M's web presence

William & Mary's web presence is our primary delivery vehicle for marketing and communication. Keeping our websites up-to-date and accurate is strategically important to the university. To this end, Managers may assign content owners to specific websites or content folders. These trusted content editors will be responsible for periodic content reviews of their owned content.

Content Ownership

Every asset (page, file or image) in Cascade has one owner. Any number of Cascade editors may be able to edit a piece of content – but only one of them can be the owner of that asset.

The primary purpose of ownership is to facilitate communication and accountability. By assigning assets within a website or folder to an owner, the Manager and the content owner can see what content has, or has not, been recently reviewed.

Although we do not generally promote the capability, all Cascade editors are able to assign themselves as content owners for any content they can edit, and are also able to remove ownership assigned to themselves. Additionally, any editor who creates new content automatically becomes its owner. For these reasons, it's important for Managers to communicate expectations with content editors/owners, and to periodically ensure that asset ownership (and content review dates) reflect their desired governance practices.

The Content Inventory Report, discussed below, provides a simple interface for Managers to see and adjust content ownership and content review dates.

Content Review

At the direction of university leadership, William & Mary is undertaking an initial university-wide content review and cleanup during the final months of 2025. After this initial review period, University Web & Design will assign all content an automatically-renewing 1-year review window. Likewise, all newly-created content will begin life with an automatically-renewing 1-year review window.

Managers may choose to set shorter review windows for content that is especially time-sensitive or expected to change often. We ask Managers not extend review periods to longer than a 1-year window without specific arrangement with University Web & Design.

As content reaches the end of its review window (whether in December 2025, or annually thereafter) Cascade will provide each content owner the specific dates and asset counts of content reaching expiration. The Content to Review widget available on each editor's Cascade Dashboard prominently and conveniently provides statistics for owned content coming up for review, along with a link to Cascade's Content Reviews report. Content editors/owners are encouraged to use the More » Mark as Reviewed link on individual assets to indicate the content is current and accurate.

As a Cascade Manager, you may find the Content Inventory report, discussed below, a more useful tool. It provides a simple interface for Managers to see and adjust content ownership and content review dates.

Content Inventory Report

The Content Inventory report is always available from the hamburger menu, under Reports. You can also access it from a new Reports drop-down available in the top black bar whenever you're within your Site Content area.

With the quantity of content each Manager needs to review – or delegate for review – during the initial 2025 cleanup, a good tool is worth its (virtual) weight in gold. The Content Inventory report is the best tool Cascade has offered to date. It is, in fact, the sole reason we took the time to upgrade Cascade to this latest version prior to cleanup.

From this one report you can filter your Cascade Site by folder, content owner, review date and/or review status. Additionally, you can change the owner and/or review date of up to 50 items at once. 

The easiest way to mark an asset as reviewed is actually to assign a new review date (we suggest the 1-year recurring option). You can spin through a folder or website, update what you can, delete what you cannot, then head over to the Content Inventory report to change the review dates for all assets in the folder in bulk.

We don't advertise the Content Inventory report to individual content editors/owners – but they do have access to it. Use your own discretion whether to advise them in its use. Technically, owners could remove themselves from ownership and/or adjust review dates in bulk. You (and we) can use appropriate filters to see they have done this. But they may be safer with the Content Review widget visible on their Dashboards, plus the Content Reviews report available as a link within that widget.

As a Manager, it is your responsibility to review (or delegate/supervise review of) your content.

Questions?

Be proactive. Contact us with questions, and attend our in-person and virtual help sessions throughout fall 2025.