[wp-edu] Implementing Wordpress in Universities

[Joss Winn]

John,

You must run a very tight ship at Edith Cowan University if all web
publishing relating to research, teaching, learning, marketing and
internal communications is performed through an institutionally
controlled CMS.  In my experience, there are usually a number of
disparate systems which may or may not work together; much like
academics, some of who choose to use the tools provided and many, who
do their own thing.

There are a number of ways that WordPress records information for
audit: highly queriable MySQL data, LDAP integration (if used), RSS &
Atom feeds for all content, and XML dumps that can be performed by
users at any time. In addition, each time the 'save' or 'publish'
button is hit, a new time-stamped revision is recorded against a user
profile. Backed up nightly, the data is available for audit at any
time. A simple 'wget -r' command will download a WordPress website in
its entirety for archiving in an Institutional Repository.

The UK Government seem happy to use it, too. For example:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/ (The Prime Minister's official website)
http://blogs.dfid.gov.uk/ (Department for International Development)
http://www.walesoffice.gov.uk/ (The Wales Office - official
representation for Wales in UK central government)
http://www.ournhs.nhs.uk/ (National Health Service reform)
http://governance.justice.gov.uk/ (Ministry of Justice)


Joss


-----Original Message-----
From: wp-edu-bounces at lists.automattic.com on behalf of John BLAHUSIAK
Sent: Sat 11/8/2008 09:25
To: wp-edu at lists.automattic.com
Subject: [wp-edu] Implementing Wordpress in Universities

I am surprised to hear that Wordpress would be implemented in
Universities.  In the UK and Australia and I suspect other
jurisdictions the record keeping requirements on Universities are
onerous -- primarily as a result of direct and indirect legislative
requirements (for instance, Records FOI, Privacy acts etc).

I can how Wordpress and associated tools would be of use in relation
to facilitating conversations across Universites.  But as far as I can
gather there is not a record keeping module for Wordpress -- to allow
easy porting into common electronic document management software.

Essentially every time a user hit publish or comment they would be
either creating a new record or a new version of an existing record.
Without a link to University electronic document management systems
institutional websites would seem crazy brave.

John Blahusiak
Policy and Project Officer, Governance Services
Governance and Planning Services, Edith Cowan University






This e-mail is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient you
must not disclose or use the information contained within. If you have
received it in error please return it to the sender via reply e-mail
and delete any record of it from your system. The information
contained within is not the opinion of Edith Cowan University in
general and the University accepts no liability for the accuracy of
the information provided.

CRICOS IPC 00279B
_______________________________________________
wp-edu mailing list
wp-edu at lists.automattic.com
http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-edu