UMGC - Shared Content Library (SCL)

Designing a governed content system for scalable, reusable learning experiences

UMGC branding

Snapshot

  • Role: Co-Lead, Content Strategy & Governance (UX focus)
  • Scope: Content systems, governance model, and workflows
  • Platform: Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) + D2L Brightspace
  • Scale: Used across programs and courses at institutional level
  • Impact: ~66% reduction in duplicated content across migrated courses

Why This Work Mattered

UMGC delivers hundreds of courses across programs and terms, with significant overlap in learning content.

In theory, reusable content should reduce effort and improve consistency.

In practice, reuse was fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to maintain.

Content wasn’t failing because of quality—it was failing because of structure.

The real challenge wasn’t creating better content.

It was designing a system that could manage and sustain it at scale.

The Situation

Reusable learning content was inefficient and difficult to maintain:

  • The same resources were duplicated across dozens or hundreds of courses
  • Updates required manual changes in multiple locations
  • Authors lacked clarity on what to reuse vs recreate
  • Content was tied to individual course shells, limiting reuse

For authors, this created daily friction—uncertainty about which version was correct, hesitation to update shared materials, and duplication as a workaround.

My Mandate

Working in partnership with institutional leadership, my role focused on:

  • Designing a reusable content system that scales
  • Establishing governance and lifecycle workflows
  • Reducing duplication without flattening instructional nuance
  • Aligning authors, technologists, and stakeholders around shared practices

This required balancing efficiency, flexibility, and adoption—not just technical implementation.

Key Decisions

This work was shaped by a series of system-level decisions.

Treat content as infrastructure, not assets

Instead of managing content as individual pages, we designed a system that treated content as reusable infrastructure.

Why: Content reuse only works if it’s structured, governed, and maintained centrally. Copy-and-paste workflows don’t scale.

Tradeoff: Required upfront coordination and structure, but enabled long-term efficiency and consistency.

Reject one-size-fits-all reuse

We allowed content to be:

  • Program-specific
  • Cross-program reusable

Why: Not all content should be universal. Over-standardization risks losing instructional context.

Tradeoff: More complex governance model, but significantly better adoption and flexibility.

Design governance into the system

We embedded governance directly into AEM workflows:

  • Tiered update levels (L1-L3)
  • Automated review triggers
  • Defined publishing permissions

Why: Manual governance creates friction and inconsistency. Systems should guide behavior—not rely on enforcement.

Tradeoff: Required coordination with technical teams, but reduced long-term operational overhead.

Prioritize adoption through clarity

We focused on making reuse the easiest path:

  • Clear naming conventions
  • Metadata and tagging for discoverability
  • Training aligned to real workflows

Why: Systems fail if people don’t trust or understand them. Adoption is a design problem.

Tradeoff: Required investment in change management, but increased long-term success and usage.

What I Built

This work resulted in a centralized, governed content system:

Shared Content Library (SCL)

A single source of truth for reusable learning content:

  • Structured content types and taxonomy
  • Tagging and metadata for discoverability
  • Cross-program reuse capabilities
  • Centralized storage within AEM

This transformed content from isolated assets into a managed system.

Governed Publishing Model

A tiered system for managing content updates:

  • L1: Minor updates (fast publish)
  • L2-L3: Structured review and QA
  • Defined ownership and approval pathways

This allowed content to evolve without introducing inconsistency.

How I Led

This work required alignment across:

  • Instructional designers and authors
  • Content strategists
  • CMS and platform teams
  • Academic leadership

My role focused on:

  • Translating UX and content needs into system workflows
  • Aligning stakeholders around shared standards
  • Designing governance that balanced control and flexibility
  • Supporting adoption through training and communication

Success depended as much on trust-building as system design.

Outcomes

The Shared Content Library delivered both measurable and cultural impact:

  • ~66% reduction in duplicated content across migrated courses
  • Significant decrease in copy-and-paste workflows
  • Improved consistency and reliability of updates
  • Increased cross-program reuse of high-quality content
  • Clearer ownership and stewardship of shared assets

The system transformed content from a fragmented set of materials into a scalable, maintainable infrastructure.

What I Learned

  • Reuse only works when authors trust the system
  • Governance must be embedded, not enforced
  • Designing for authors is as critical as designing for end users
  • Clarity reduces resistance and increases adoption

How This Connects to My Work

This project reflects core themes across my work:

  • Governance as usability: well-designed systems reduce friction
  • Systems over assets: scalability requires infrastructure
  • Stewardship over ownership: shared systems require shared responsibility

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