WordPress in Higher Education
April 7th, 2011 | Posted in Tactics
May 31, 2011: A great discussion re: “WordPress in Higher Education is going on in the LinkedIn Group “Digital Communications Marketing in Higher Education” that I manage. View discussion (login required).
I have used WordPress for this website for many years. Each upgrade, tweak, and improvement continues to reinforce my affinity for it. WordPress is easy, nimble, and robust. It gives its users access to a huge developer community, widgets, and add-ons. WordPress is a CMS built on common sense and reality: it focuses on a few key website management maneuvers that all sites must do well (write, edit, publish), and it does them with grace.
How many other CMS platforms would you consider graceful?
Surprisingly, WordPress adoption in higher education has taken a long period of time. Early on, huge proprietary and expensive content management systems trumped open-source versions for reasons of perceived security and safety. In many cases in the past and now, even introducing the topic of using an open-source platform (e.g., WordPress) would create conflict and tension between IT and marketing professionals. Many considered the risks of using an open-source technology insurmountable compared to the security believed to be inherent to big-brand CMS boxes. But the aversion to considering open-source is changing. Why?
The 2008 recession opened conversation topics of reducing costs, improving efficiencies, and eliminating bulky website management systems that do many things passably but nothing exceptionally well. The period of time during and post-recession made it more acceptable to review established processes and software. It opened the discussion again to establishing best practices.
WordPress in higher education
I am curiously watching WordPress in higher education, and I have noticed that numbers of universities and colleges are already choosing to use it. Just take a look at this public Google Doc, WordPress in Higher Education. Kudos to them. If not now, there will be a day soon when WordPress is considered one of many viable options for managing a website in higher education. For some, that option is now. For others, the process of evaluation and review is on-going. Hang in there, WordPress fans in higher ed. I believe that your time will arrive soon.
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