[wp-edu] Making the Case for WP in University Setting

[Wiliarty, Kevin]

We use WordPress for a variety of purposes at Wesleyan. Many other
institutions use WordPress, too. You might want to have a look at this
spreadsheet:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?hl=en_US&key=t4xpEU0zpD0w7pi7H5yVjnQ&om=true&richtext=false#gid=0

On Wednesday, July 6, 2011, Patrick Laverty <patrick_laverty at brown.edu> wrote:
> Alex-
> We've rolled out WP as our whole-campus solution for blogs.  You can contact me directly with any questions.
> Thanks.
> Patrick Laverty
> Brown University(Patrick at brown.edu)
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Alexandre Enkerli <enkerli at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Been using WP in diverse contexts, including some of my activities as
> an instructor.
> After talking with diverse people needing advice about Web solutions
> for all sorts of things, I came to the realization that it'd be
> incredibly useful to have a university-supported install of WordPress
> (Multi-Site and hopefully BuddyPress-enabled).
>
> It's a big institution, so it can be difficult to request such things.
> Actually, the communications department is in the RFP phase of
> implementing a new (commercial) CMS, so energies are spent elsewhere.
>
> We use Moodle as the main course management system for most of the
> community, though the business school uses FirstClass for the same
> purposes. Many faculty members are dissatisfied with their course
> management system and, clearly, there's a need for something which
> goes beyond individual courses. This is a university with a strong
> involvement in the local community and there are many projects by
> students, staff, and faculty which could use an online space as a kind
> of “university commons”.
> What's more, it'd be interesting to have some people do innovative
> work through WordPress. A dream I have is to use WP as a repository
> for “learning objects”. Such projects can be done independently, but
> they're more interesting if they're hosted on university servers.
> Way back when, universities had “personal homepages”, for all
> affiliated individuals. Why can't we have WP sites and BuddyPress
> profiles?
>
> Does anyone have advice on getting an academic institution to accept
> WP on their servers? I'll try to prepare a dossier, pointing to work
> done at diverse institutions (good thing Boone paved the way), and
> describing practical cases from faculty initiatives. It even sounds
> like the fear of having sensitive data held off-site could be a
> factor. But any insight as to how such a process went at other
> institutions would be very useful.
>
> Thank you.
> --
> Alex Enkerli
> http://Enkerli.com
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>
>
>

-- 


--
Kevin Wiliarty, Ph.D.

Academic Computing Manager, Wesleyan University (PAC 128)
kwiliarty at wesleyan.edu
kevin.wiliarty at gmail.com
Wesleyan telephone: 860.685.2812
Cell phone: 860.759.9157