Joomla and university websites

[deadbyradio]

Hello,

I was recently employed by the recreation department at my college to maintain their website, make commercials, basically anything involving a computer. The current site was made by someone else that just graduated and is alright and all but I know I could make something that would be better in every aspect. The current site is all SHTML, it's rather annoying at times. I'd basically like to make a new site in Joomla that is eye appealing and efficent. I don't plan on doing this till spring or summer but thought I'd start thinking about it.

Anyone know of any good college/university type websites out there that are running Joomla? http://osu.okstate.edu is one of the best examples I've been able to find. Anyone know of any reasons why we should switch from SHTML to Joomla?

[MMMedia]

I am going to move this to the Schools and Universities forum in the Non-Profit section of the forums.  I think you will get the most replies to this specific question in the forum that deals with it specifically. 
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/board,265.0.html

[deadbyradio]

thanks, I didn't even see that there was such a forum!

[Gare]

Hi -

If this helps, SHTML refers to a type of HTML, whereas Joomla would provide a complete content management system that would render HTML, and allow you or others to create content without editing HTML.


from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Includes

Server Side Includes or SSI is an easy server-side scripting language used almost exclusively for the web. As its name implies, its primary use is including the contents of a file into another, via a Web Server.

SSI is primarily used to "paste" the contents of one or more files into another. For example, a file (of any type, .htm, .txt, etc.) containing a daily quote, could be included into multiple SSI Enabled pages throughout a website, by placing the following code

Good luck!

[Gare]

We just recently went live with Antioch University Los Angeles: http://www.antiochla.edu    Joomla 1.0.12

will be using Joomla for other sites as well.

[MFD]

Are there ANY major U's that have made the Joomla commitment?  There doesn't seem to be a comprehensive list of universities using Joomla at the "enterprise" level.   From what I can tell from Google searches, most major universities are investing in commercial CMS such as Collage (Northwestern U), Stellant (U Texas at Austin), Commonspot (U Wisconsin), etc.    In checking the U Oklahoma site mentioned in the initial posting, it seems they are in fact a Desire2Learn customer (http://www.desire2learn.com/clients/colleges_universities.asp) 

[Gare]

Joomla is being used at departmental and club levels in universities across US.  A google search of "joomla site:.edu" shows these Joomla powered sites among many others:

Princeton University Molecular Biology Department Computer Support Site
http://mol-lamp.princeton.edu/joomla/index.php

Global Information Internship Program is an innovative "digital service learning" program at UC Santa Cruz
http://giip.ucsc.edu/content/view/73/42/

Princeton Linux Users Group
http://plug.princeton.edu/linux/index.p ... e&Itemid=1

Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia
http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu

Sheldon Jackson College
http://www.sheldonjackson.edu/

Texas A&M Business Student Council
http://bsc.tamu.edu/index.php?option=co ... 3&Itemid=1

University of Alabama in Huntsville - UAH VAST Website
http://vast.uah.edu/joomla/index.php?op ... e&Itemid=1

University of Michigan School of Information Computing
http://www.si.umich.edu/computing/index ... e&Itemid=1

Institute for the Economy and the Future Western Carolina University
http://ief.wcu.edu/

Engineering and Business Alliance at Santa Clara University
http://eba.scu.edu/joomla/

[MMMedia]

Are there ANY major U's that have made the Joomla commitment?   There doesn't seem to be a comprehensive list of universities using Joomla at the "enterprise" level.   From what I can tell from Google searches, most major universities are investing in commercial CMS such as Collage (Northwestern U), Stellant (U Texas at Austin), Commonspot (U Wisconsin), etc.    In checking the U Oklahoma site mentioned in the initial posting, it seems they are in fact a Desire2Learn customer (http://www.desire2learn.com/clients/colleges_universities.asp)   

http://osu.okstate.edu/  is powered by Joomla! 

[compass]

University of Delaware English department and Prescott College (soon)

[Gare]

Antioch University Santa Barbara - http://www.antiochsb.edu now runs on Joomla.

[AmyStephen]

Great work Antioch University Santa Barbara! 

[nniiccoollee]

We've been using Joomla/Mambo for our sports site since 2004. See http://www.albion.edu/sports Our sports information director loves Joomla and the flexibility it gives him.

I've also used Joomla for our alumni magazine at http://www.albion.edu/iotriumphe and our virtual tour http://www.albion.edu/tour and I'm going live with our new campus news site this week.

I really like Joomla in our context because I can give the users what they want instead of dictating what they get. This gives me buy-in and support for future implementations, without the expense (which I'd rather spend on staffing thank-you-very-much).


Nicole

[AmyStephen]

Those are all excellent pieces, Nicole! It is so very encouraging to hear from an "old timer" who still has such enthusiasm for Joomla!. I would love to see us get a University Joomla! User Group started. I know we could benefit from discussing our work. One area in particular would be to collaborate on and share good accessible template override systems for v 1.5, but also to discuss all kinds of integration possibilities.

Any interest in that?

Amy

[nniiccoollee]

Those are all excellent pieces, Nicole! It is so very encouraging to hear from an "old timer" who still has such enthusiasm for Joomla!. I would love to see us get a University Joomla! User Group started. I know we could benefit from discussing our work. One area in particular would be to collaborate on and share good accessible template override systems for v 1.5, but also to discuss all kinds of integration possibilities.

Any interest in that?

Amy

Absolutely, Amy! I would be VERY interested in collaborating with other institutions to share and learn one another's experiences. (I'm not as strong as I'd like to be with code, but I have spent quite a bit of time on template development and features integration.)

We're also in the early stages of planning for a site-wide redesign and CMS implementation, and I would prefer to stick with Joomla, so any help I can get in leveraging Joomla would be very much appreciated.

So where do we start? 
Nicole

[AmyStephen]

Nicole -

I know OK State and OSU are interested, as well. Princeton is always supportive, too. I need to pull my notes on Universities involved - or interested - in J!. If you have any contacts, perhaps you can also start pulling the information together. There's a nice list above us, as well.

Right now, at U of NE are in the final stages of a couple of J! v 1.5 sites - and just starting on a third.

Email me and we can start considering this - [email protected].

THANKS!
Amy

PS - AND any other Higher Ed institutions interested in joining in with Nicole and me - let us know! The more the merrier! 

[deadbyradio]

I'm on a CMS committie at Youngstown State... we're currently looking at a bunch of different options and I'd rooting for Joomla, of course 

[AmyStephen]

Excellent! Please ask for support - information - etc - as you need it. Also, if you have any requirements documents or specifics that your institution is willing to share, that would be very beneficial to others. I would like to see us come up with common needs and see how we can meet those for our individual institutions as a group.

Very much appreciate your note - thanks!
Amy

[thekids]

we are from Indonesia, my campus and my personal website is use joomla.
  my campus is : Polytechnic State of Padang : http://www.polinpdg.ac.id
  and my personal website is : http://rahmat.polinpdg.ac.id
joomla is the best

[AmyStephen]

The new year is coming up soon  , and I would like to start talking with others of you in higher education about Joomla!. There are so many things about "us" that are unique and special  and I am quite certain we can benefit from working more closely together. If you have interest in being a part of this group, please email me at [email protected]. Shortly after the holidays pass, we can begin talking about organizational issues (briefly) then get rolling.

Hope to hear from some of you!
Amy