Georgia Tech & Drupal Higher Education CMS Integration

Atlanta Drupal Users Group (ADUG)January 2015 Meeting

Welcome to Georgia Tech!

You are here!

• Overlooking Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field

• Oldest continuously used on-campus site for college football.• Home of the most lopsided college football victory.

Welcome to Georgia Tech!

Who We AreEric Scott SembratWeb ManagerCollege of Engineering

Adelle FrankSenior Web DeveloperInstitute Communications

Web ManagerInstitute Communications

Eric Huffman

Georgia Tech Graduate (2009) GT Drupal Users Group Leadership

GT Drupal Users Group Leadership

GT Drupal Users Group Leadership

• Restrooms are available across the hall.• WiFi information will be available at the February meeting.

• When entering and exiting the parking deck, be wary of students and vehicles around you.

• Don’t get rear-ended.

Housekeeping

A History of Drupal @ GTFrom our humble beginnings of CMS Integration On Campus

2007 2009 2012 2015

Humble Beginnings

2007 2009 2012 2015

• First web development began in 2007. • Solely handled by a small team in Institute Communications • Prior websites built using HTML/CSS/PHP and home-grown CMS • Initial strong interest in adopting Plone CMS• Post top-level redesign in 2007 (non-Drupal), the School of

Mathematics was redesigned in Drupal 6.

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

• Campus Begins to Adopt Drupal 6.• Mercury (HG), a news/event syndication system, is built in Drupal

6.• The College of Computing and International Affairs websites are

migrated to Drupal.• Drupal 6 multisite is utilized for a few campus initiatives.

Adoptions Begin

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

Growing Pains for Web Dev

2007 2009 2012 2015

• Campus Drupal Community Founded• Units, colleges, schools on campus hire web developers. • Internal hosting (OIT Webhosting) founded to centrally manage virtual web servers.

• Community resources (wiki, themes, modules) became available.

Community Grows

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

• Redesign of Georgia Tech Web Theme• Contract out strategy and design• Development and maintenance in-house• Goal was to have a responsive theme and a redesign of the top

level (Georgia Tech front page) web.• Launched a year later in 2013.

Redesign Project

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

• Georgia Tech Front Page• [infrastructure]• [poormans panels]• [theme settings]

Current Campus Trends

2007 2009 2012 2015

2007 2009 2012 2015

• Users Group (GTDUG)• Extensive developer and editor wikis • ~200 subscribers, ~7000 visitors • Downloads for theme templates, features, and modules• Thriving mailing list and monthly meetings on-campus• Connectivity with all major units across campus

• Academic, Administrative, Research

GT Drupal Users Group

2007 2009 2012 2015

GT Drupal Users Group

Our FutureWhere Georgia Tech is going with Drupal

• Upgrade of the news/events syndication system.

Mercury (Hg) 2.0

• Formalization of Drupal community on campus.• Formalizing organization, structure, leadership.• Expanding from ‘Community of Knowledge’

Community Changes

• Bring Web trends in-line with campus initiatives• CSS preprocessing (Sass, LESS, SMACSS)• Quick adoption of services for Drupal 8• Formalize resource contribution workflow• Formalize repository management and usage campus-wide

Modern Practices

• Establish larger web development community• Embrace other systems and services for unique use-cases• Example: Microsites and brochureware websites with Drupal

• Wordpress versus Drupal

Acknowledge Weaknesses

Questions?Let’s chat about how higher education uses Drupal!