Drupal is solving the problem of standardization and the use of different content management systems in higher education institutions.
Universities need to quickly distribute a lot of information from semester to semester, related to topics such as research, events, courses or recruitment. These universities tend to have their own technology team led by a technical director or web developer who work in isolation with little contact from any executive office. The result is that one department may be using a proprietary content management system (CMS), while another department may be using a custom CMS with its own development tools. This leads to knowledge and talent to manage and maintain these systems being fractured and documentation being sparse or non-existent.
On the other hand, CTOs have the daunting task of overseeing and managing technology across dozens of departments; a task that requires significant time and investment. Standardizing on a single CMS platform helps generate a greater return on investment for institutions struggling with managing multiple CMS technologies.
These are some of the features of Drupal that are helping in the standardization process in Higher Education institutions:
Integration with other systems - Drupal offers a wide variety of web services, such as View Data Export, RESTful Web Services and Web Service Client. Drupal can be configured as a service endpoint (receive and return data to third-party systems) or configured to call other services (receive data from applications such as event management systems). For institutions that publish native mobile applications, these web services properties can seamlessly deliver content to native applications. Some institutions use Drupal as the primary source of content in their mobile applications.
User Account Management - Web user management in universities can be very complex, often resulting in duplicate records when managing users across multiple websites and other information systems. Drupal can associate user database systems such as Microsoft Active Directory or LDAP using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) module. Alternatively, the CAS module can be used to make Drupal the primary database for user records.
Multi-site - Drupal offers several ways to configure multiple websites to run in a single installation. The traditional multi-site approach is the most flexible, providing the ability to store content for each website in different databases and/or share MySQL tables like Drupal's users table. Another approach is to use the Domain Access module, if the requirement is to share content on multiple websites, it also allows users and settings to be shared between each of the sites.
Responsive User Interface - Drupal 8 now comes with responsive themes by default, providing compatibility with mobile devices without the need to install a new theme.
Intranet – Building a university intranet using Drupal reduces the human talent load required to manage more than one web technology for the website and intranet.
Accessibility and Section 508 Compliance - Section 508 compliance is a requirement at most academic institutions. Here are two modules that provide Section 508 compliant functionality: Text Size for adjusting text and Accessibility for validating a site's accessibility compliance. Alternative text for image handling is available by default.
Content Creation, Curation and Publishing – Some university departments require extensive checks to curate and publish content, modules such as Workbench suite and Revisioning offer highly configurable publishing workflows.
No licensing fees - Proprietary CMS tools lock universities into annual licensing contracts while offering limited features. Drupal's open source license gives higher education institutions a less expensive technology solution that offers hundreds of feature possibilities typically not available in most other proprietary CMSs. Drupal's modular architecture and customizability make it a very viable option for solving issues related to divergent web technologies that plague many higher education institutions.
Drupal is currently being adopted by more than 71% of the top 100 universities worldwide: institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Cal Berkeley. Other major institutions such as the University of North Carolina and Cornell have followed suit.
Institutions that want to establish a web technology foundation that provides enough options to meet the needs of all departments at their universities should take a closer look at Drupal.
You may be interested in seeing some case studies:
Pontifical Javeriana University of Cali.
Translated and adapted from Mediacurrent: https://www.mediacurrent.com/blog/why-drupal-right-fit-higher-ed
Image taken from Drupal.org https://www.drupal.org/industries/education