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Drupal for higher education: a perfect match
Did you know that more than 70 percent of the top 100 universities in the world use Drupal to maintain their websites? In fact, open source content management systems are preferred by all higher education institutions, and the larger the institution, the more likely they are to use Drupal.
There’s a reason (several, actually!) that Drupal is such a popular choice with universities and colleges. Higher education websites need to speak to a number of audiences—prospective and current students, faculty and staff, and alumni are just a few! Moreover, higher education websites need to represent a number of stakeholders—academic departments, athletics, facilities, advancement, and more! With all of these users and stakeholders, institutions need the ability to centrally control their brand, offer flexible solutions, and integrate with different software platforms and systems. Drupal’s robust open-source community ensures all this is possible. And of course, Drupal also has built-in accessibility, responsiveness, and SEO features to make every website findable and usable for all.
Multiple websites? No problem!
Many of the higher education clients that Redfin Solutions partners with have several web properties under their umbrella. For instance, the Dartmouth College Advancement team manages a number of departmental websites, as well as sites for campaigns, conferences, and events. With the growth of virtual activities, the need for more sites has only continued to increase. Similarly, MIT’s Office for the Vice President of Research, another Redfin client, maintains a number of interrelated research websites for different audiences, such as a research administration site and a website specifically for postdocs conducting research.
Centralized standards provide a foundation for flexibility
Redfin helps clients like Dartmouth and MIT publish web content across many properties with ease and peace of mind by implementing our Delta Site System (DSS) paradigm. Using the Delta Site System, our clients can maintain centralized control over aspects of their websites such as security, updates to modules, brand identity, and content entry standards while allowing for customization and flexibility on individual websites as desired. Redfin uses Pantheon’s custom upstream technology so that all of a client’s websites are unified with a single codebase. However, since code is deployed to each site individually, site-level teams can test features on their own websites without affecting other sites in the system. This balance of control and flexibility enhances the efficacy of Drupal for universities and colleges.
Spin up new websites quickly
The Delta Site System also makes it easy for clients to spin up new websites quickly and without the need for high-level technical knowledge. With the click of a button and a little configuration, a new website that uses a template from the upstream can be deployed within minutes. This has proved very convenient for many of our higher education clients when they get last-minute requests from other departments or need to respond quickly to changing priorities.
Learn more about Redfin’s scalable solutions for higher education
Redfin Solutions uses the Delta Site System to help higher education clients:
- maintain standards across multiple websites
- offer customization for individual websites and stakeholders
- re-use components and features across web properties
- create new websites from a standard template quickly and easily
- streamline website management while opening the door for more administrators and content editors
Learn more about Redfin’s Delta Site System or contact us to discuss how we can work together to enhance your organization’s web presence and reduce the headache of managing a multitude of websites.