A great post by Jim Groom at UMW on the use of WordPress multi-user to aggregate content via technologies like RSS. Places like universities are complex places with many affiliates who all have needs for their own web identifies, and control over these identities. These can range from grant-funded projects to various centers to faculty research sites. But there is also a need to be able to pull this content and re-mix it in various ways for various audiences. For instance faculty research sites that feed content to a department site that highlights the latest doings by their faculty. Jim describes this all better than I’m doing here so go read his post. We have something similar running with MU here, although we haven’t really started to employ it in a production way yet (too much beginning of the year stuff to work through!) But the bottom line is what sounds really complex is actually pretty easy to set up from a technical standpoint, and pretty cheap from a hardware/software cost perspective, when you use a tool like WordPress MU.
The Future of WPMu at bavatuesdays
So you offer a Bluehost like setup for faculty, and if that is too much, allow them to map a domain, take control of their own course work, and encourage an aggregated course management model that pushes students to take control of their digital identity and spaces by extension.
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Jim added these pithy words on Oct 19 09 at 7:37 amBut the bottom line is what sounds really complex is actually pretty easy to set up from a technical standpoint, and pretty cheap from a hardware/software cost perspective, when you use a tool like WordPress MU.
I totally agree with you, and that is what makes it exciting, increasingly anyone can create and host their own space, and we just have to think about relating it intelligently and aggregating it cleanly. It seems to be increasingly the case that some kind of simple and powerful aggregation engine can really expose the work happening on a university campus, much more so than the brochure logic we have been married to for over a decade now.
Randy added these pithy words on Oct 19 09 at 8:45 amIn a post a couple of years ago I envisioned an initiative to have all University systems with a web component set up to deliver a standard XML/RSS type feed. Which in turn would allow all sorts of content sharing and aggregation possibilities through the community. Nice to see that a system based on something like WordPress MU makes this possible.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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