HighWire Press, a global hosting services provider, has launched a new platform for The Masonry Society (TMS), Masonry Standards Online. The website is hosted on HighWire’s flexible content hosting platform, Scolaris, and supported by Sigma, which provides identity and access management.
PRINCETON, N.J., Aug 16, 2023 – HighWire Press, a leading provider of platform solutions, has helped TMS navigate the online publishing landscape by migrating TMS’s standards online for the first time. The platform also integrates with TMS’s user database via SSO, offering a seamless journey between their standards and other TMS websites.
The Masonry Society (TMS) is a nonprofit that aims to advance masonry knowledge, its development and application. They do this by creating and maintaining industry standards – the core guidelines that US design and construction communities are guided by. They are regularly used by engineers, architects, inspectors, and others, but until now have never been available online.
HighWire offered TMS a high degree of customizability, which allowed their solution to be tailored to the precise needs of their users. This included needing to implement a three-column layout, so that commentary was prominently included in the interface, alongside the main content. The HighWire team worked through this challenge to create a rich display which is also mobile-optimized, allowing users to quickly refer to it both in the office, and while in in the field. TMS also wished to assign ‘resources’ and text to subsections of the standard to provide additional information and guidance to the users. They also wanted a way that TMS editors could update these resources over time, without technical input. HighWire provided a simple interface for TMS staff to do this, while also converting TMS’s content from Word files to XML, which reduced TMS’s need to work with multiple vendors. The site was implemented using a flexible, modular approach, so that future enhancements could easily be added after launch to generate further value.
Overall, HighWire extended their publishing expertise to make recommendations to TMS about how to maximize the value of their content. TMS can now offer subscriptions for the first time for this content through their eCommerce site. Their content is significantly more discoverable, as their standards are indexed by Google for the first time.
“The many features of the Scolaris platform and support from the development team made it easy for us to migrate to a digital environment,” commented Phil Samblanet, Executive Director of TMS. He noted that the powerful and user-friendly platform will be of great value to those using TMS standards for they can easily find provisions, and gain added value through resources such as design examples, reference materials, hover definitions, and more. He noted “The Highwire team was a joy to work with, professional, and responsive, going out of their way to meet our needs and to provide onsite training.”
“We are pleased on this new partnership with TMS and hope to continue our collaboration in the future,” said Tony Alves, Senior Vice President of Products at HighWire. “By leveraging HighWire’s content hosting service, TMS has amplified their digital presence. This collaboration underscores HighWire’s commitment to being a trusted partner in the scholarly community, both for smaller societies and global enterprises.”
The partnership, initially set for a six-year term, is expected to create business impact for TMS, with more users becoming aware of TMS’s content through global engagement. This has been made possible through HighWire’s turnkey solution, offering the full service from content conversion through to post-launch analytics.
About HighWire Press
HighWire Press is a leading provider of digital publishing tools and platform solutions, across all aspects of the publishing lifecycle, including content management and hosting, e-commerce, access and identity management, manuscript submission and tracking, and analytics. Since our inception at Stanford University in the early days of the web, HighWire has remained an innovative leader, focused on the creation, production, and sharing of knowledge. We are now powered by MPS Limited, a global partner to the world’s leading publishers of scholarly and eLearning content and corporates. This combination of deep domain expertise makes HighWire the technology partner of choice for global commercial, society, and academic publishers.
For more information, please visit highwirepress.com
About The Masonry Society (TMS)
The Masonry Society (TMS) is an educational, scientific, and technical society dedicated to the advancement of scientific, engineering, architectural, and construction knowledge of masonry. TMS is a not-for-profit, membership driven organization that gathers, correlates, and disseminates information for the improvement of the design, construction, manufacture, use, and maintenance of masonry products and structures. As part of these efforts, TMS develops standards, guides, and other resources, educates through seminars, workshops, conferences, and collaborates with the construction industry, design profession and other leaders desiring to see a better and more resilient built environment.
For more information, please visit: masonrysociety.org
