“After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the West showed a lot of solidarity with the former Eastern Bloc countries. At that time, IBM donated a large computer system to the Czech universities. While it was installed in Prague, it had four terminal centres, one of which was at Masaryk University,” says Miroslav Bartošek from the Institute of Computer Science, recalling the beginnings of the Internet in the academic sector and in the Czech Republic in the early post-communist era.
Thanks to these Western technologies, the university was able to connect to the EARN/Bitnet academic network, which was sufficient to enable file transfer and electronic mail. The World Wide Web came soon afterwards, in parallel with the development of information systems, supercomputers and high-speed networks. “We at the university learnt about the Web sometime in 1994 or 1995,” says Bartošek.
By that time, the ICS Bulletin, a university newsletter for those interested in computer technology, had been published for three years. Today, it still serves as a reminder of a revolutionary era marked by the rapid development of computer and information technologies. It is also remembered by Jana Kohoutková, who long worked at the Institute of Computer Science as head of the Information Systems Division, which develops most of the university’s IT systems and also the websites.
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“We received no specific assignment at that time. The birth of the MU website was the result of an organic process that originated from our desire to explore and experiment,” recalls Kohoutková, adding that the enthusiasm of her colleagues continued to be the main driver behind the development of the university website long after its original launch.
The initial content on muni.cz consisting of basic information about the faculties and links to scientific publications was gradually supplemented by overviews of the individual departments, staff contact details and information about study programmes. At that time, non-technical university staff also became interested in the website, discovering its marketing potential. Right from the start there arose the problem of how to conceptually address the differing requirements of the individual faculties. “At first, finding a balance between central management and the autonomy of the faculties was quite difficult,” admits Kohoutková. Bartošek agrees: “It was necessary to present a unified university style, but at the same time take into account the different needs of the faculties.”
The compromise eventually resulted in a double-track approach that continues to this day, where most university component units have two websites. “We could certainly design a more streamlined system, but it would probably not be accepted by the stakeholders,” explains Bartošek.
Today, the MU unified visual style helps people navigate across the university’s online presence, ensuring consistency of presentation. The design and technological aspects of the website, or rather its structure, met halfway in the mid-2000s and were integrated in 2006, culminating a decade later in the introduction of the ‘Umbraco’ content management system, which now covers ninety per cent of all university online content.
As a consequence of the effort to bring the web closer to end-users, the introduction of Umbraco also represented a fundamental change in the approach to content management. Until then, web management was mainly handled by technical staff based on faculty requests. The unification of the content management system transferred this responsibility directly to the staff at the faculties and the MU Rector’s Office. At this point, we should mention the contributions of then Vice-Rector Ivana Černá and Chancellor Iva Zlatušková, who encouraged the staff to post additional content to the newly redesigned website.
The introduction of Umbraco was a turning point in the 25-year history of the university website and a key milestone in its democratisation. This step marked the final decoupling of the ‘backend’ technology from the ‘frontend’ content, the creation and publication of which was now entirely the responsibility of individual marketing and communications departments and their editors.
With this division of responsibilities, IT staff no longer create the content and focus fully on providing the necessary technical services, development and modifications of web functions based on user suggestions. The Umbraco system now manages 430 websites containing presentations of not only the faculties but also their individual departments, conferences and other events and initiatives.
Over the past twenty-five years, many skilled specialists and student developers have joined the team of webmasters at the Institute of Computer Science. In addition to Jana Kohoutková, we should mention Jaromír Ocelka, the current head of the ICS Information Systems Administration, who as a programmer was at the very birth of the university’s web presentation, and Pavel Budík, head of the MU WebCentre, who is responsible for the development and operation of technologies for the management of Masaryk University websites, including the Umbraco content management system. After all, without their contributions, this text could not have been published.