Why Drupal 8 Is a Game Changer for Higher Education

Why Drupal 8 is a Game Changer for Higher Education

September 9, 2015


→  Chris Hartigan, VP Higher Education, Acquia

→  John Kealy, Website Support Manager, UCSF

→  Chris Miller, Solutions Architect, Acquia

What is Drupal 8? →  The next release of the most popular

content management system in higher education

→  An evolved digital platform that institutions can use to deliver exceptional online experiences to all constituents

→  A reason to get really excited about the future of digital at your school!

Main .EDU

Colleges

Departments

Admissions

Alumni Faculty

Students

Community

What Does the Institution of Tomorrow Look Like, Digitally? →  Integrated? →  Branded?

→  Centralized? →  Controlled (Governance)? →  Optimized?

→  (More) Cost Effective? →  Seamless experience?

What Does the Institution of Tomorrow Look Like, Digitally?

Today’s Reality?

Today’s Reality?

19 Schools & Colleges 12 Brand Experiences

6 CMS SoluCons

(Integrated? Centralized? OpCmized? Cost effecCve? Seamless experience?)

Digital is the Next Enterprise Platform on Campus →  Payroll

→  HRM

→  Financial Aid

→  Student Information

→  Portal

→  LMS

→  CRM

→  Digital

Distributed

Enterprise

1970’s

1980’s

1990’s

1990’s

Early 2000’s

Mid / Late 2000’s

Late 2000’s

2015…


Drupal 8 represents an extraordinary opportunity for colleges and universities. It provides institutions with the ability to drive an enterprise digital strategy from a single, centralized

platform that can support all campus requirements.


→  John Kealy, Website Support Manager, UCSF

Plan for Success and Level Up →  Upgrade provides a clean slate →  Improve your business process

→  Reach out to business partners to plan →  Effective planning gains economies of scale

UCSF’s Drupal 6 Hosting →  Very little community coordination →  No cross campus sharing of code

→  All sites were custom builds §  Costly ($15,000 -$150,000 per site build) §  Difficult to maintain (full time employee to manage > 40 sites)

→  No hosting intake process

Service Improvements →  Monthly Drupal Users Group meetings (2012) →  Better Coordination between schools and central IT (Summer 2012) →  Standard Install package (Winter 2013) →  Self service site request form (Winter 2013)

UCSF Drupal Hosting Growth

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 (est)

Sites Created 0 0 309 194 324

Starter Kits Site Built 0 0 215 135 228

Sites Hosted 26 59 493 609 933

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

UCSF Drupal Hosting Costs

2011 2012 2013 2014

Number of sites 26 59 493 609

Platform Provider Cost $34,000 $84,000 $108,500 $100,000

Approximate FTE Cost $80,000 $160,000 $240,000 $320,000

Hosting Total $114,000 $244,000 $348,500 $420,000

Cost/Site $4,385 $4,136 $707 $690

Why Not Coordinate in Drupal 7? →  Everyone has existing approach

§  Changes to current stack are hard

§  Creates winners and losers on decisions

→  Current sites still need TLC

Advantages of Planning for Drupal 8 →  We are all in planning stage for 8 →  All need to develop Drupal 8 distributions

→  Drupal 8 improvements disrupt current approaches →  No winners and losers on architecture choices →  Drupal 8 lifespan 6-10 years (more time for ROI)

Planning For Drupal 8: Goals →  Provide a useful service →  Save UC time and money

→  Create more secure webhosting environment →  Standardize development practices

§  Create shared best practices

§  Create shared stack of modules/functionality

§  Develop talent pool with common skills

Planning For Drupal 8: Challenges →  Cross UC coordination →  Building scalable governance/coordination

§  Making joint decisions

§  Coming up with common funding

→  Building scalable architecture →  Creating a flexible central “stack”


→  Chris Miller, Solutions Architect, Acquia

Drupal 8: ~6 Critical Issues Left!

Drupal 8 Benefits Everyone…

→  Content Authors →  Site Builders →  Developers →  Designers →  End Users

Drupal8.edu/platform →  Enable centralized development teams

§  Common features and distributions

→  Empower distributed content creation

→  Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) →  Mobile & Services →  Multilingual & Localization

→  508 Compliance

Drupal 8: Opportunities →  Enhanced functionality included in

Drupal core §  New theming framework §  Mobile first §  Improved administrative and publishing

experiences §  Native multilingual §  Robust configuration management

→  New innovations will occur in D8 §  New features and functionality §  Enhancements to core §  New modules

→  Performance improvements §  Improved caching strategy

→  Developer resource onboarding made easier; more accessible

§  Ability to build a team more quickly §  New architecture allows PHP or

Object Oriented developers to learn Drupal more easily

§  Front end development adopts a more common standard

Drupal 8: Challenges →  Rebuilt Drupal 8 codebase requires developer lead time

→  Theming, while simplified, is different

→  Waiting for “Contrib” to port modules to Drupal 8

→  Some migration required to move from Drupal 6 & 7


September 9, 2015