Blazing a Path for Drupal in K-12 and Higher Education

Gone are the days when universities, colleges, school boards, and other academic institutions would slap up a static website and update it once or twice a year. Today's education and e-learning sites are dynamic, community-oriented hubs that engage visitors -- students, parents, and administrators -- on all aspects of the school's life. When it comes to rising to these challenges, Drupal is the perfect content management solution. There are great reasons why millions of websites - including well-known companies, governments, non-profits and schools - use Drupal to power their content management systems.

Drupal is:

• Powerful yet flexible
• Able to manage hundreds of thousands of user accounts
• Usable by multiple editors simultaneously
• Richly extensible, with 7,000+ free modules available
• Ideal for empowering developers to create new online learning environments on the fly

This past year, we had the opportunity to work with Portland State University on a complete revamp of their multi-site infrastructure using Drupal 7. We'll be launching their new site this spring, but we wanted to share some of the highlights so you'll know what's coming down the pipe:

A template system that allows hundreds of different site owners to customize their site while maintaining the school's branding guidelines.  This system allows site owners to pick and choose from different page layouts, select their site's colors from pre-defined color sets (or make their own), and upload their department's specific branding images. The end result is a high-quality, consistent brand across hundreds of sites while allowing a high degree of flexibility to site owners.

An install profile that allows web managers to deploy sites with a click of a button.  In a matter of seconds, roles, permissions, and features are all enabled and customized to meet the needs of site owners.

A syndication server that allows content publishers to create content in one central site and have the content syndicated to hundreds of other sites.  Site owners can select the terms they want to subscribe to and create customized blocks of news, events, profiles, and FAQs, which they can position on their site.

All of the benefits of Drupal 7.  We've been working on this project since Drupal 7 was in its early alpha phase. Along with PSU, we are proud to be launching one of the first Drupal 7 university implementations of this scale. This has been an exciting project for us. We’re looking forward to continuing our partnership with PSU to work with other universities, colleges, and school districts to help build on the basis of what we’ve started. PSU’s goal – and ours – is to make their system a shining example of Drupal done right: an example other educational institutions will be sure to follow. Beyond our work with PSU, here are some of other projects where we've helped school districts, colleges, and universities exploit the full power of Drupal.

Arizona State University

We've been working with ASU since 2008 and have completed multiple projects for them, including on-site consulting & training. ASU is one of the largest universities in the US and is a leading player in the Drupal space.

Delta School District 

Our work with DSD involved a complete revamp of their site including a Google mapping system & many other community improving features. Our redesign enabled us to win first place at the American Design Awards.

Northland Pioneer College

Our partnership with NPC began with a total overhaul of their website. This led to additional phases, onsite training, and ongoing consulting. NPC was also another award-winning site, earning Silver at the Paragon Awards.

University of California San Francisco

Over the past couple of years, we've had the privilege to work with three different departments at UCSF.

We look forward to partnering further in improving their web enviroment and departmental communities. We've gathered a lot of experience in the "education":/drupal-education arena, and we want to make ourselves available to share appropriate information, strategies and tools that we've been developing to help higher education and K-12 schools looking to move their online presence into the cutting edge of open source technologies. Feel free to "contact us":http://imagexmedia.com/contact should you wish to check on our availability or to explore an engagement.