WORDPR

ESS IN H

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WHAT IS WORDPRESS

• Began in 2003 as a blogging platform

• Began to be used heavily as a CMS in 2010 (version 3.0)

• WordPress 3.5 has been downloaded more than 11 million times

• WordPress is used on over 16% of all websites throughout the Web

• WordPress is used on over 50% of websites that use a CMS

WHO USES WORDPRESS?

• Many small business and hobby sites

• CNN, the New York Times and many other major news outlets

• GM, UPS and Sony

• TechCrunch, Mashable, TheNextWeb and most major tech blogs

WHO USES WORDPRESS IN HIGHER ED?

• UMW was 1 of the first to use WordPress as a blogging platform, and 1 of the first to use WordPress as its website CMS

• Other institutions currently using WordPress as a CMS include:• University of Florida (http://ufl.edu/)• Boise State University (http://www.boisestate.edu/)• Southern Arkansas University (http://web.saumag.edu/)• University of Arkansas at Little Rock (http://ualr.edu/)• Lafayette College (http://www.lafayette.edu/) – the first known to go full-

WordPress• University of Central Arkansas (http://uca.edu/)• Maryville University (http://www.maryville.edu/)• John Carroll University (http://sites.jcu.edu/)• …and many, many more (http://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/education/)

NEW INSTITUTIONS ALL THE TIME

Many institutions are thinking of moving to WordPress in the near future:

• Butler University

• Colby College

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

• Colorado Mountain College

• Texas Christian University

• UT Health Center – San Antonio

• …and many more

WHY

WORDPR

ESS?

HO

W W

AS

WO

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PR

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S C

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SE

N A

T U

MW

?

IT GREW ON US

• UMWBlogs began in WordPress ~2007

• Open to all staff, faculty and students

• Complete freedom and flexibility

• Grew exponentially

• UMW website was running on homegrown/Contribute hybrid

• New microsites kept getting set up in UMWBlogs

IT MADE SENSE

• UMWBlogs created ~5000 existing WP users on campus

• UMW is open environment/WordPress is open – Common values

• Interactivity• Innovation• Community

• Better support than many commercial platforms

• Full customization

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbWg-mozGsU (NSFW?)

TECH S

PECS

WH

AT

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TA

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TO

RU

N W

OR

DP

RE

SS

?

REQUISITE KNOWLEDGE

• LAMP Environments

• PHP• Object-oriented programming• WordPress APIs

• HTML/CSS

IS WORDPRESS SCALABLE FOR HIGHER ED?WordPress.com runs on WordPress!

UMWBlogs

• ~7600 blogs

• ~10,000 users

UMW.edu

• 51 networks

• 288 sites

• ~30,000 published content pieces• 10,000 pages• 15,000 posts• ~5,000 miscellaneous content pieces

• Avg. 15,000 visits/day

HOW BIG OF A SERVER IS NEEDED?

UMW.edu is running on the following hardware:

MySQL running on separate server

Nginx running as proxy cache in front of Apache (http://j.mp/13FcTj9)

*Scale appropriately based on expected traffic

Operating system Ubuntu Linux 10.10

Kernel and CPU Linux 3.2.0-32-generic on x86_64

Processor informationIntel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5660 @ 2.80GHz, 4 cores

Real memory 11.74 GB total, 1.44 GB used

HOW IS IT SET UP?

At UMW, we use a “multi-network” setup

Development, Staging and Production servers (not automatically synced)

Lafayette (@mackensen) has a unique way of implementing

WHAT

DOESN’T

IT D

O?

SLICES, DICES; DOESN’T JULIENNE FRIES

• Won’t write/organize content for you

• Workflow

• Asset management

• Doesn’t necessarily enforce good design decisions

• User-level permissions

PLUGINS TO IMPROVE INTERFACE

• EditFlow – Implements some workflow capabilities

• CMS Tree Page View – Allows drag-and-drop re-order of pages

• RoleScoper – allows granular permission management

• WhiteLabel CMS – rearranges admin area, customizes login screen

• Types and WPToolset – implements custom content types, custom taxonomies, custom fields and template manipulation

• Document repository – manage all documents in single library, across multisite, with persistent links to latest version

• JetPack – adds multiple new features, including spelling/grammar check, image carousels, ability to post via email, custom CSS, etc.

These are not the only plugins that do this, just some examples

OTHER RECOMMENDED PLUGINS

• GravityForms – allows easy creation and management of forms, including integration with Akismet, PayPal, MailChimp and more

• TablePress – allows easy creation and management of data tables, including JavaScript features to allow table sorting on front-end

• TubePress Pro – implements ability to include dynamic video galleries from multiple sources (Vimeo, YouTube, etc.)

• BackupBuddy – allows backup, export and import of full WordPress sites

• Regenerate Thumbnails – recreates all WordPress image sizes after settings changes

• W3 Total Cache – implements multiple layers of caching and performance optimization

• Page Links To – allows easy redirects

• …and more at http://j.mp/17XzSw0

LESSONS LE

ARNED

WH

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E W

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WHEEL OF MORALITY, TURN, TURN, TURN;TELL US THE LESSON THAT WE SHOULD LEARN• Don’t do it all at once

• Do as much as you can yourself

• Don’t expect perfection• Iterate, iterate, iterate

• Don’t reinvent the wheel

CALL M

E, MAY

BE?

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T AL K

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QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?

Twitter: @cgrymala

Website(s): http://umw.edu/ (Multi-Network Setup)

http://ten-321.com/

http://svn.ten-321.com/ (SVN Repo)

http://wphighed.org/ (WP resources for Higher Ed)

Email: cgrymala@umw.edu

curtiss@ten-321.com

SpeakerRate: http://spkr8.com/s/10608

http://about.me/cgrymala