WordPress for the 99%

WRK7 Workshops Track

Sultana/Mississippi

WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 4:30 PM

Tame the wild web that's grown over decades of decentralized web services by providing a central self-service solution that's prettier, cheaper, and (as far as the customer is concerned) maintenance-free -- without hiring a small army. Texas A&M and Berkeley are maintaining WordPress networks of thousands of sites with web teams of two to five, and you can do it, too.

WordPress is popular because it's easy for users to grasp and easy for developers to extend. Why not take advantage of that to provide branded websites for your campus constituents? Sure, there are a few groups who need a custom site and have the money to pay for it--but what about everyone else? A little structured content here, some inline help there, and you have a one-size-fits-most solution for virtually every small website on your campus. Go beyond the student blog network! WordPress is for everybody: faculty, staff... even that events coordinator who needs a website by 5 because she's opening up registration in the morning and what do you mean, is the content written?

Using case studies from Texas A&M University and The University of California at Berkeley, I'll demonstrate how to set up common content models, templates, and workflows for:

* Departments
* Research teams
* Conferences & symposia
* Committees

I'll also talk about integrating the 1% into these WordPress networks without sacrificing security, branding, and accountability.

The workshop will include specific code examples and plugin recommendations from the case study projects.

Presenters

Stephanie Leary
Texas A&M University

As a part-time in-house developer / part-time freelancer, Stephanie Leary has worked with every major WordPress network on the Texas A&M University campus and is currently finishing up a project for Berkeley. She specializes in WordPress sites for higher education and government agencies. She is a core contributor to WordPress and has released more than twenty free plugins to the WordPress community. Her published books include Content Strategy for WordPress (2015) and WordPress for Web Developers (2013).

Registration

Workshop registration is part of the Annual Conference registration process.

Need to add a workshop? Please use the link in the confirmation email sent when you registered. Or email conference@highedweb.org.