Drupal and Higher Education

Drupal and Higher Education David Diers | Developer Four Kitchens, LLC @beautyhammer

Today on Drupal and Higher Ed

!  Challenges: Higher Education !  Drupal Can Help: Applied solutions, 7 case studies !  Drupal Can Help: Resources and Lessons learned

Winter is coming (for higher ed)

Highlights from ‘Making the Grade’ Deloitte 2011 & ‘Key Issues Facing HE’ Huron Consulting 2012 http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Canada/Local%20Assets/Documents/ca_en_ps_making-the-grade-2011_041811.pdf http://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/library/KeyIssuesFacingHE2012.pd

Finances

Increased Competition

Education for All

Globalization

Regulations and Reporting

Evaluating Governance

Technology

Over budget, under funded Students, faculty, resources Diversity and accessibility Global education competition New responsibilities, increased disclosure Identifying efficiencies Upgrades needed across the board, greater student and faculty expectations.

DRUPAL A powerful and flexible open source Content Management Framework, a community, a movement.

Drupal can help higher ed Finances

Increased Competition

Education for All

Globalization

Regulations and Reporting

Reviewing Governance

Technology Resources

Evolving Technologies Leadership engagement

Standardization

ü  Better Web Products ü  Financial Advantages ü  Best of Competition and

Cooperation ü  Globally Focused ü  Standardization and

Shared Competency

“But you don’t have to take my word for it”: Case Studies !  Drupal as Unit CMS (cofa.utexas.edu) !  Drupal as Flagship (duke.edu) !  Drupal as Intranet (csumb.edu) !  Drupal as LMS (psu.edu) !  Drupal as University Wide Solution (yale.edu) !  Drupal as OOTB software (berkeley.edu) !  Drupal as Lingua Franca (stanford.edu)

Case Studies Methodology

!  Reached out to University or Implementing Teams !  Phone Interviews with a standard series of

questions as a starting point. !  Specifically business drivers, technical drivers,

and lessons learned while implementing.

Case Study Presentation !  For each study, we’ll establish the University

context in terms of overall size, team-size, and infrastructure style.

!  Look at the business and technical problems that each team was facing.

!  We’ll look at the solution and talk about the ways each solution meets those needs.

!  At the end of all of the case studies we’ll take a look at lessons learned

Case Study: Drupal as Unit CMS College of Fine Arts, The University of Texas at Austin

Campus Size: Public or Private:

Central or Distributed IT:

Campus Drupal Adoption:

Hosting: Case Study Team

Size: Internal or Vendor

Team:

~51,000 students Public Admin Central + Distributed Low to Moderate Central and Department 3 FTEs Internal

Case Study: Drupal as Unit CMS

The problem: Aging College site needed redesign Developer maintenance was high Switch from moderation model Highly idiosyncratic custom code base

The Solution:

Case Study: Drupal as Unit CMS

The Solution: http://www.utexas.edu/finearts/ !  Drupal based site !   Improved contributor workflows (SSO based) !  Contributors were now stewards !  Quality of site improved !   Increased in house Drupal expertise (up to 10

department and subject sites) !  Moved hosting to Central

Case Study: Drupal as Flagship www.duke.edu sites, Duke University






Team:

~14,700

Private

Central + Distributed

Moderately High

Central

6 FTEs

Internal

Case Study: Drupal as Flagship The problem: Aging sites in custom Java CMS Lacked simplicity and flexibility Did not meet clients’ content needs Lacked campus integration points

The Solution:

Case Study: Drupal as Flagship The Solution: http://duke.edu !  Drupal based main site !  Launched audience, and subject sites (multi and

single sites) !  Drew in disparate campus content !  Was flexible and extendible !  Custom static caching publishing solution !   Increased Drupal use on campus

Case Study: Drupal as Flagship ! http://doteduguru.com/id4828-how-duke-university-

is-using-drupal.html

Case Study: Drupal as Intranet myCSUMB, California State University Monterey Bay






Team:

~5,100

Public

Central IT

Very High

Central

3 FTEs

Internal

Case Study: Drupal as Intranet

The problem: !  Existing vendor intranet had usability issues !  The recently adopted Google Apps needed sso

and collaboration integration ! Peoplesoft SIS integration needed !  Replacement needs depth to handle many

advanced and university specific use cases. !  Limited developer resources

The Solution:

Case Study: Drupal as Intranet The Solution: MyCSUMB – an Intranet in Drupal built with the Open Atrium distribution Highly customizable student focused intranet. !   #1 visited on campus, #2 is myscumb/students !   Organic Groups for Apps collaboration with hand-rolled SSO !   Utilized Drupal expertise and comfort of IT Team !   Restful API to Peoplesoft for better user facing SIS !   Integrated OLARK Support http://denver2012.drupal.org/program/sessions/open-atrium-dot-edu-open-atrium-campus-intranet

Case Study: Drupal as LMS ELMS, Penn State University






Team:

~45,200

Public

Central & Distributed IT

Moderate, growing

Central Hosting

2 FTEs

Internal

Case Study: Drupal as LMS

The problem: !  Space limitations of LMS hamstrung portfolio

based courses !   It’s not that LMS is broken industry wide, but

content IS broken in LMS. !  Cost, usability and LMS competitive flattening are

driving interest in open source LMS products. !  Solution needed to integrate with existing LMS

The Solution:

Case Study: Drupal as LMS The Solution: ELMS Drupal based Learning Management System distribution !   Sidecars the LMS !   Follows a fragmentation approach – Drupal does best. !   Includes Open Studio !   Used by many colleges on PSU and system campuses

Case Study: Drupal as LMS

! http://btopro.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/structured-anarchy/

! http://btopro.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/decoupling-for-maximal-impact/

! http://drupal.org/project/elms | http://www.youtube.com/user/psuelms

Case Study: Drupal as web publishing Yale.edu sites, Yale University






Team:

~11,600

Private

Central IT

High

Central

7-8 FTEs

Vendor - Four Kitchens

Case Study: Drupal as web publishing The problem: !   Yale sought to standardize on a CMS for about 7-8 yrs,

finally selected Drupal, now what? !   Yale needed training !   Needed hosting and deployment to conform to existing

skillsets !   Needed to hide back-end complexity from front end users !   Needed SSO !   Wanted to standardize and reclaim efficiency !   Needed to scale (1000s of sites) and be flexible

The Solution:

Central Request Moderation

Case Study: Drupal as web publishing The Solution: http://yale.edu http://drupal.yale.edu University wide Drupal solution with a sustainable and secure provisioning, deployment and site maintenance infrastructure system !   Integrated !   SSO Integration !   Features based functionality packages – deployed via Drush !   Brand standardization and customization !   Leveraged existing skills for deployment and hosting !   Flexible code based workflow to deploy, rollback, and reuse !   Have weekly Drupal Drop In training session to assist campus

knowledge.

Case Study: Drupal as web publishing http://groups.drupal.org/node/68603 http://fourkitchens.com/projects/yale-university

Case Study: Drupal as OOTB Open Academy, The University of California Berkeley




Hosting: Internal or Vendor

Team:

~35,800

Public

Central & Distributed IT:

Dominant Product of Choice

Central & Vendor

Vendor – Chapter III & Pantheon

Case Study: Drupal as OOTB

The problem: Provost level initiative to reduce cost. Internalized at central IT as: !  Reducing spending on hosting !  Reduce spending on apps. !  Offer cost savings in level of effort !  Custom Drupal often incurred high costs

The Solution:

Case Study: Drupal as OOTB The Solution: Open Academy + Pantheon hosting http://oa.dev:8888/ Drupal based academic specific distribution paired with off-site best of breed Drupal hosting. !   Open Academy is built strong out of the box –Launched 100 sites in

just 5 months !   Meets many academic specfic use cases by design !   Reduces barriers in creation, content contribution, extension, and

maintenance. !   Strong contributor experience built on Integration, extendibility and

easy prototyping !   In addition to cost savings it provides standardization in presentation

and branding !   Responsive

Case Study: Drupal as OOTB

!  http://drupal.org/project/openacademy ! http://denver2012.drupal.org/program/sessions/

open-academy-higher-education-drupal-product-departmental-websites

Case Study: Drupal as Lingua Franca Drupal adoption at Stanford University






Team:

~15,300

Private

Central & Some Distribution

Platform of Choice

Central, & Vendor

n/a

n/a

Case Study: Drupal as Lingua Franca What Happened: Seven Steps to Drupal 1.  Campus mySQL 2.  Establish user helping user precedent 3.  Central IT will follow its customers 4.  Centralized Training (starting w/ advanced) 5.  Centralized theme helped lower design costs and

increased standardization 6.  Drupal Events 7.  Web Auth Integration https://techcommons.stanford.edu/node/131

Drupal Adoption Gone Wild!!!

Drupal Community

Case Study: Drupal as Lingua Franca Working with Vendors: !   5 years ago – vendor relationships was wild west! !   Zach Chandler used his 10% time to set up a Drupal

consultancy inside. !   Selection became rigorous !   Found he could create understanding about Stanford

systems !   Advocates for Stanford 100% but also consultants !   Eventually– a new unit was formed, Stanford web services- !   Zach views his job as understanding the industry and

projects and pairing those projects.

Just a drop in the bucket.

!  What can we learn from all of this? !  Saw something you liked? Need Drupal

Resources?

Lessons Learned

!  Building Drupal Communities !  Go the extra mile – give a penny, take a penny !  Prepare to be an advocate/trainer

!  Building Drupal Sites !  Launching your institutions’ site? Make sure it is

not your first rodeo. !  Plan for long term support, don’t give someone

else your nightmares

Lessons Learned !   Building Drupal Sites (cont.)

!  Use the right tool (mycsumb) !  Drupal is like a painting, distros are like sculptures. !  Choose simple first !  Don’t be psychic about usability

!   Coding !  Highly abstract for re-use !  Show people what the site does immediately !  Bring out site building beauty (by coding) !  Follow community trends, you’ll thank me.

Lessons Learned !  Web Projects

!  Is your client really your client? !  Identify how to decouple

!  Selling Drupal to Campus !  Consider the TCO of Open Source !  This is an open source platform with enterprise

support !  Take a look at what your peers are doing

Lessons Learned

!  Selling Drupal to Campus !  In Drupal – apps beget sites beget apps beget... !  Open source may not be free, but yeah, neither

are vendor products

The more you know…*

!  We are more alike than different !   “All you have to do is call” -Call your peers. No,

really. !  Drupal is a community of zero to hero – give it

away, it all comes back !  Win by ROI Cost, Win by usability, Win by making

sense !  Success breeds Success (and comfort)

Drupal .edu Resources !   Campus: Drupal User Group, Drupal mailing list, and

your fellow Drupal implementers !   Local: Look for or start a Drupal User Group, Drupal

Dojo !   National: Drupalcamps, & Drupalcon !   Sites: Drupal.org and Groups.Drupal.org (.edu

unconsortium) !   IRC #drupal-edu channel !   Your peer institutions – give them a call, they probably

won’t bite (*not true during football season)

You’ve been a lovely audience

Thank you to: Kevin Miller, Jeremy Cumbo, Sarah Heath, Zach Chandler, Matt Cheney, Ryn Nasser, Bryan Ollendyke, Vincent Massaro Questions, comments, follow ups: [email protected] Twitter: @beautyhammer

Drupal and Higher Education

Technology

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