WordPress in higher education isn’t a new phenomenon, but recently, it’s been making waves as a focused niche within the community.
Hot on the heels of the inaugural WPCampus event (the first conference specifically dedicated to WordPress in higher education), WordCamps across the country have pushed campus users into the spotlight. Both WordCamp Boston and WordCamp Nashville offered higher ed tracks this year, and WordCamp Baltimore recently announced they will include a higher education track at their November event.
With all this focus on WordPress use for colleges, universities, and other learning institutions, we’ve pulled together useful resources to help you make the case to bring WordPress to your campus.
White Papers
These white papers are all useful to help get stakeholders on board with WordPress, from project managers and developers to administrators and IT. They are laid out in a way that makes the information scannable while also providing in-depth details necessary for the decision-making process.
- WordPress for Higher Education (Modern Tribe)
- How WordPress Can Be Used In Higher Education (WP Engine)
- WordPress in the Service of Education (Kinsta)
Surveys/Studies
Where white papers explain, surveys and studies measure. All of these resources provide data specifically applicable to the use of WordPress in higher education.
- WordPress Trends In Education (Modern Tribe) Includes data set from landmark survey of 486 campus representatives.
- WPCampus Survey (WPCampus) Discussion of survey findings.
- CMS Survey for Webmasters (University of Colorado Denver) Includes CMS usage data from a survey of 132 webmasters.
Case Studies
Higher education institutions are faced with unique challenges from a diverse group of stakeholders. Case studies provide information on how those challenges were solved, as well as additional information about important context or constraints relevant to the story.
- L&S WordPress Migration (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
- MIT Sloan Management Review (Modern Tribe)
- University of Cambridge (Bill Erickson)
- Tufts University (Rafi Yagudin)
Presentations
If you’re more of a visual learner, these slides and videos from WordPress in higher education presentations will be right up your alley.
- Higher Ed Showcase presented at WPCampus (Shane Pearlman)
- Using WordPress in the World of Higher Education (Rachel Carden)
- A Centralized Approach to Using WordPress at Boston University (Inderpreet Singh and Andrew Bauer)
- Making the Case for WordPress in Education (Pantheon)
Tools
Creating a WordPress resource page for your college or university? These resources can help you plan what to include in your own user toolbox.
- WordPress Tutorials, Examples, & Guidelines (Western Oregon University)
- Using WordPress at ODU (Old Dominion University)
- WordPress at Boise State (Boise State University)
Open Source Resources
Want to step back from WordPress and back up your case with some data for the bigger open source picture? These resources can help.
- Trends in Higher Education Marketing, Recruitment, and Technology (Hanover Research)
- Investigation into the management of website content in higher education institutions (Eduserv)
- Usage of Content Management Systems for Websites (W3Techs)
- Open source in higher education: how far have we come? (The Guardian)
- Open Source Myth Busters (University Business)
- 6 colleges turning out open source talent (Network World)
Top Agencies for Higher Education
These agencies have what it takes to navigate the complexities of higher education projects. They have demonstrated a proven track record of success on campus, working with a range of clients from small private colleges to big names like Harvard Law School.
WordPress in Higher Education Wrap Up
As you can see from the variety of examples listed above, WordPress is a powerful CMS solution for higher education.
WordPress easily scales to handle the requirements of institutions small and large, and can be customized to meet the needs of various stakeholders, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, and donors. WordPress checks all the boxes and then some – it is also easy to use, effective, economical, and efficient.
From full-featured content management to building application platforms, these resources will help you begin leveraging the power of WordPress for your own campus.
5 Responses
Great info!
I have thought so many times of entering the blogging world as I love reading them. I think I finally have the courage to give it a try. Thank you so much for all of the ideas!
I do not totally agree with this point of view. My position is more relative to research papers from paperell.com. And especially, I always have a possibility to buy it by sale period. It is really convenient.
Thanks for sharing Zachary – great resource!
Washington State has their entire WordPress platform open sourced: https://github.com/washingtonstateuniversity/WSUWP-Platform. It is a great reference for how a big University is solving technical problems with WordPress!