For an education provider, outdated course information is more than a content problem. It can cost enquiries, frustrate prospective students and undermine trust.
When The Gordon partnered with DDSN Interactive, the brief went well beyond a migration to a new platform. The website needed to connect directly to its TechOne student course management system, give marketing staff control over how courses were presented, and protect years of search visibility during the move to a new platform.
The result is an award-winning website where accurate course data and human-led design work together.
I highly recommend DDSN for anyone looking for a web development partner who genuinely invests in your success.
CIS Customer Engagement Lead, The Gordon
At a glance
- Client: The Gordon Institute of TAFE
- Sector: Education and vocational training
- Platform: Kentico
- Integration: TechOne Student Course Management System
- Scope: Digital strategy, user experience and design, website development, API integration, single sign-on, content migration, URL management, staff training and ongoing support
The outcomes
- Kentico Site of the Month, February 2025
- Honourable Mention, Education & Careers category, Kentico Site of the Year 2025
- 5.0 client rating on Clutch for quality, schedule, cost and willingness to refer
- Live website information for more than 100 nationally accredited qualifications
- Greater control for marketing staff without duplicating or manually maintaining course data
- Existing search visibility protected through comprehensive URL mapping and redirect management
- A clearer course-discovery experience for students who know what they want to study, and those who do not.
The challenge
Course information changes constantly. Intakes open and close, delivery options change, and qualification details are updated.
When this information is maintained separately in a student management system and on a website, the two versions inevitably drift apart. Staff spend time entering the same information twice, while prospective students risk making decisions based on outdated details.
The Gordon wanted to close that gap permanently. At the same time, its marketing team needed the freedom to promote courses and shape the student experience without becoming dependent on developers—or being able to accidentally alter authoritative course data.
The migration also needed to protect the search authority accumulated by hundreds of existing course and content pages.
The project therefore had three priorities: data accuracy, editorial autonomy and search continuity.
What we did
Strategy: Establish one source of truth
The most important decision was architectural.
Rather than treating the website as a second copy of The Gordon’s course catalogue, we established the TechOne student course management system as the source of truth. Course information is brought into the website through an API, keeping published details aligned with the authoritative source.
TechOne controls the course facts. Kentico controls the digital experience.
This removes unnecessary double-handling and reduces the risk of applicants encountering information that is incomplete or out of date.
Design: Make course discovery easier
Accurate data is essential, but data alone does not create a good student experience.
We designed a standardised but flexible template for the courses content type, helping every page remain consistent, accessible and on brand. Custom course-display widgets give The Gordon’s marketing team control over how course information is presented in between flexible marketing content without allowing presentation changes to interfere with the underlying data.
Kentico’s judges highlighted the website’s dynamic approach to helping prospective students explore and discover courses.
Build: Integrate the systems and protect search visibility
The build connected The Gordon’s courses API with Kentico and implemented single sign-on to simplify access across the experience.
We migrated the published website content in its entirety before development began, leaving everything else behind. This ensured useful material was carried forward without transferring unnecessary clutter.
A comprehensive URL management and redirect program protected the search authority of established course pages. Every important legacy URL was considered as part of the migration rather than left to become a broken link after launch.
Redirect mapping may not be the most glamorous part of a website demonstration. Its value appears later in the website page rankings and organic traffic to the site that continue uninterrupted.
Optimise: Give the team confidence after launch
A well-designed CMS should increase the capability of the people using it.
We trained The Gordon’s staff to manage pages, work with templates and confidently author new content. Training, guidance and technical support continued after launch, helping the team get more value from the platform as its needs evolved.
That is how DDSN prefers to work: deliver the initial result, transfer knowledge and stay involved to keep improving it.
What the client said
They really go the extra mile to ensure everything is executed to the highest standard. CIS Customer Engagement Lead, The Gordon
In its 5.0 Clutch review, The Gordon praised DDSN’s dedication, expertise and continued involvement after launch, including ongoing guidance, training and support.
Why this matters for education providers
If course pages are being maintained manually alongside a student management system, a redesign alone will not solve the underlying problem.
The lasting solution is architectural: connect the website to the system of record, then give marketing staff control over presentation rather than responsibility for re-entering operational data.
The same approach can connect a website to TechOne, a CRM, an LMS, an ERP or another core business platform. DDSN delivers these integrated experiences using both Xperience by Kentico and our own Acora digital experience platform.
Services used