Georgia Tech & Drupal.

1. Georgia Tech & Drupal
Higher Education CMS Integration
Atlanta Drupal Users Group (ADUG)
January 2015 Meeting

2. Welcome to Georgia Tech!
You are here!

3. • 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!

4. Who We Are
Eric Scott Sembrat
Web Manager
College of Engineering
Adelle Frank
Senior Web Developer
Institute Communications
Web Manager
Institute Communications
Eric Huffman
Georgia Tech Graduate (2009)
GT Drupal Users Group Leadership
GT Drupal Users Group Leadership
GT Drupal Users Group Leadership

5. • 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

6. A History of Drupal @ GT
From our humble beginnings of CMS Integration On Campus

7. 2007 2009 2012 2015

8. 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.

9. 2007 2009 2012 2015

10. 2007 2009 2012 2015

11. 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

12. 2007 2009 2012 2015

13. 2007 2009 2012 2015
Growing Pains for Web Dev

14. 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

15. 2007 2009 2012 2015

16. 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

17. 2007 2009 2012 2015

18. 2007 2009 2012 2015

19. 2007 2009 2012 2015
• Georgia Tech Front Page
• [infrastructure]
• [poormans panels]
• [theme settings]
Current Campus Trends

20. 2007 2009 2012 2015

21. 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

22. 2007 2009 2012 2015
GT Drupal Users Group

23. Our Future
Where Georgia Tech is going with Drupal

24. • Upgrade of the news/events syndication system.
Mercury (Hg) 2.0

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

26. • 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

27. • 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

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