The Drupal Content Management System at CSU Libraries

1. TM The Drupal Content Management System at CSU Libraries Greg Vogl ACNS Middleware Wednesday, January 5, 2011

2. Web Content Management System • Software application • Web-based • Manages content (files and information) • Create - WYSIWYG editor • Store - Database • Display – Templates • Organize - Administration tools • No universal definition • Systems differ radically • Feature sets • Complexity • Cost

3. Demo: CSU Libraries website • Top and left menus • Breadcrumbs • Footer: URL, modified, contact, print, email • Newsand promotions • Sitemap • A-Z list vs. Drupal Glossary • Drupal Search • Contact form, CAPTCHA • Drupal procedures for Libraries staff

4. Libraries website in 2009 • XHTML: static pages • JavaScript: client-side dynamic effects • SSI: consistent headers, footers, menus • CSS: consistent presentation • Apache: restrict access to staff content • Samba: read/write access via Windows paths • PHP and Perl: dynamic pages and applications • Open source: Wikis, blogs, calendar, form handler • In house: Databases, staff directory, request and contact forms, spam protection, author meta tags, web page list • Other servers: LibGuides, Catalog, Discovery, E-Journals, InterLibrary Loan, Course Reserves, Digital Repository

5. Problems with old website • Too many web pages, files and folders • Presentation is not fully separated from content • Web authors need extensive technical skills • Existing admin tools are home-grown and limited • Maintenance is time-consuming and error-prone • Consequences • Few staff members add or edit content • Content is not organized, consistent, up to date • Quality and consistency of presentation is weak • Site seems static, neglected, complex, unappealing • 10% decline in Libraries site visits in 2009 vs. 2008

6. Our prior experience with CMS • Existing CMS-like systems • Wikis, Blogs, LibGuides • Observations • More dynamic pages are being created and viewed • More authors are active • Conclusions • Dynamic Web pages are replacing static ones • Most staff prefer creating them • Processes and tools affect product quality • Automated content management saves staff time

7. Easier Web authoring • WYSIWYG editor • No need for advanced HTML or CSS skills • No need for Dreamweaver or FrontPage • No wiki syntax to learn • Can paste content from a word processor • Web-based access • Edit content from any networked PC • Staff can change content immediately • No waiting for Web staff to upload content • Upload many types of documents and files

8. Efficiency and quality assurance • Specialization of roles • Content, edit/publish, design, code, admin • Better content management tools • Workflows – assure key pages are reviewed • Version history – view and roll back changes • Better admin tools • User and permissions management • Global search and replace - URLs, Web authors • Remix content • No redundant copies of information • Form data, RSS feeds, A-Z, sitemap, breadcrumbs

9. Appearance • Separation of concerns • Content/presentation, data/business logic • Visual consistency • Page layout, formatting, navigation • Each page must choose a template • More findable, usable, accessible • Easier compliance with Web standards • Easier Search Engine Optimization

10. Communication features (Web 2.0) • What • Participation, information sharing, collaboration • Form a learning community(social constructivism) • Who • Libraries staff, CSU, community, world • How • Forms, comments & suggestions, surveys, polls • Wikis, blogs, news feeds, events calendars • Discussion forums, chat rooms, mailings, photos • Personalization, tags, ratings, reviews

11. Costs and Risks • Staff time: design, admin, migration, support • Degraded performance and security • Overly uniform appearance • Inflexibility • Increased complexity (site, code, workflows) • More information silos • More content and authors to manage • Lower overall content quality?

12. Selection criteria • Free or relatively low cost • Maturity, stability, performance • Flexible open-source development framework • Ease of use • Good match for expertise of technical staff • Installation, configuration, customization • Integration with existing systems/apps • Edit and manage many content types • Manage users, roles and workflows • Documentation and support

13. Strongest candidate systems • Commercial • Microsoft SharePoint • Adobe Contribute • CSU Department of Web Communications • Open Source • Drupal (PHP/MySQL) • Joomla! (PHP/MySQL) • Plone (Python) • Alfresco (Java) • List of Content Management Systems

14. Recommendation: Drupal • Mature (created in 2001) • Rich in features, documentation and support • Free, open source, Web-based • Linux or Windows, Apache or IIS, PHP 5, MySQL • No added hardware or software costs • Many Drupal online resources for Libraries • Used by over 30 academic libraries, e.g. Arizona • Discussed at library conferences and online groups • Many library-specific modules and uses

15. Drupal installation • Prepare a server • Install Web server software, PHP, and SQL • Download Drupal and contributed modules • drupal.org/download • Top modules by usage • Download a theme to customize look and feel • CSU Libraries uses CTI Flex, a subtheme of Zen • Drush (Drupal Shell) • Easy module installs/upgrades: • drush dl module_name

16. Acquia.com • Free downloads to simplify Drupal installation • Drupal distributions include popular modules • Stack installers for Windows and Mac OS X • Microsoft Web Platform Installer for IIS • Version Control Repositories (e.g. Subversion) • Easy command-line Drupal installation: • svn co https://svn.acquia.com/drupal/branches/1.x-6.x . • Easy upgrades of Drupal and modules: • svn update • Paid services • Hosting, support, training, etc.

17. Demo: My Account • Login • Personal Information • Blog • Edit • Track • Contact

18. Demo: Content management • Content lists: Content, Accessible content • Create content: Page, CKEditor, Revisions • Books • Events and Calendar • Web Forms • Comments • Taxonomy • Search and Replace Scanner • Backup and Migrate

19. Demo: Site building • Blocks • Contact Form • Menus • Modules • Themes: CSU_CTI_Flex, CTI_Flex, Zen, etc. • URL Aliases • URL Redirects • Views • Workflows

20. Demo: Site configuration • Google Analytics • track outgoing and download links, user info • Input Formats • full/filtered HTML, WYSIWYG, PHP • Performance • cache pages; optimize CSS and JavaScript • Site information • name, notification email, slogan, footer, home page • Site maintenance • temporarily put the site offline

21. Demo: User management • Roles • list and edit types of users • Users • list and edit user accounts • Permissions • allow or deny actions for each role • Access Rules • allow or deny certain usernames or email addresses • Profiles • fields to display about each logged in user

22. Demo: Reports • Status Report • software versions, problems • Available Updates • module and theme versions and updates • Security Review • list potential security problems

23. Modules: Layout and Navigation • Themes - provide basic layout; subthemes • Views - display data in a block or node, in table or list format • Panels - display templates for the main content area, e.g. 3-column layout • Path - user-friendly URLs vs. node numbers • Pathauto - automatically create node paths, e.g. based on title and node type • Path Redirect - create external page redirects • Search - search all Drupal pages • Menu Breadcrumb; other breadcrumb modules • Taxonomy – organize by hierarchy or keywords

24. Modules: Editing and publishing • WYSIWYG - required for installing Drupal WYSIWYG editor modules • including FCKeditor, YUI Editor and TinyMCE • CKEditor - improved version of FCKeditor • Workflow - moderation of content, requiring approval before posting (save as draft, ready for review, approved for display) • Diff - see differences in revisions • Print - Print, email and PDF versions of every page

25. Modules: Forms • CCK - content construction kit for custom content types, especially forms • Webform - contacts, questionnaires, surveys, polls, requests, registrations, bug tracking • Date - date/time field type for CCK • Calendar - select dates, schedule events • Email - field for email addresses • CAPTCHA and Mollom- prevent automated spam submissions

26. Modules: Media • Upload - uploading and attaching files to a content node • FileField - field for uploading a file • Image - uploading images • ImageField - uploading images with preview, title and alt text • IMCE, Image Assist - for incorporating images into pages • Gallery - photo gallery • Comparison of image-handling modules

27. Modules: User participation • Blog - title and body, home blog page, API interactions • Poll - multiple-choice questions; display answers • Comment - allow users to add comments to nodes • Calendar – events calendar • Profile - basic user profiles • Biography – secure, public profiles • Subscription - e-mails page changes to subscribers • Signup - allow users to sign up for an event • Simplenews - publish and e-mail newsletters to subscribers • FAQ - allows user-submitted, staff-answered questions • Quiz - author and administer quizzes • Bookmarks, Favorite Nodes - user lists of favorite nodes • FeedAPI, Feeds - RSS feeds • Guestbook - online guest book

28. Modules: User collaboration • Book - group page nodes into a larger hierarchical node like chapters (similar to a wiki) • Organic Groups - for wiki-like collaborative groups • Forum - basic user forum • Advanced Forum - more display features, e.g. user icons and number of posts per user • Chat Room - multi-user chat feature

29. Modules: Administration • Administration Menu - dropdown menu for admin tasks • Search and Replace Scanner - replace text in all nodes • Backup and Migrate - export Drupal database to a file • Poor Man's Cron - schedule tasks without crontab • Import HTML - import static HTML pages, create menus • Google Analytics - add tracking codes for Web statistics • XML Sitemap - create and submit sitemap for Googlebot • Admin Role - allow multiple users to be the admin • LDAP integration - authenticate, groups, read/write • Security Review - basic security checks

30. Modules: Library-Specific • Next-gen library catalogs • SOPAC - supports Millennium • eXtensible Catalog - has Drupal toolkit for interface • Millennium Integration • Creates bib records as Drupal nodes • Other Library Modules • Marc, OAI-PMH, Z39.50 search, link resolver, EZproxy, III authentication • Bibliography, book review, cite

31. Implementation timeline • 2009-08: Formed Web Redesign Team • 2009-10: Created prototype using godaddy.com • 2009-11: Installed Drupal 6 on Libraries server • 2010-05: Launched public beta site • 2010-07: Trained Libraries staff • 2010-07-19: Launched production site • Ongoing: Migrate remaining content • Ongoing: Upgrades • Drupal 7 released January 5, 2011 (today!) • Future: Add Web 2.0 features, library modules

32. Problems: Existing content • Thousands of legacy pages to convert • No easy automated process to convert pages • No mandate to convert pages • Many pages have custom formatting • Many subsiteshave custom templates • Many applications are hard to customize • Content spread on multiple servers (silos) • Can't use Drupal’s site index (A-Z), search, statistics • Changing URLs • requires fixing broken links in multiple places • Multiple logins for library systems

33. Success of existing applications • Apache, Samba, SSIs, CSS, JavaScript, PHP • MediaWikiand LibGuides • Web 2.0/social features, online editing, version history and email notification of changes • Movable Type • vs. Drupal's limited blogs • Indexing and search engines • Library catalog records, digital collections, web pages • Discovery (VuFind, Solr, Nutch), Google Mini • Diagnostics • Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, LinkScan

34. Staff resistance • Drupal's steep learning curve and usability issues • Unintuitive terminology and authoring procedures • Web authoring • Most Web authors already have a workable procedure for creating pages and are familiar with a web editor • Number of active Drupal authors is small • Web 2.0/social features • Administration gives low priority to using Drupal for interactivity, collaboration, communication with patrons • Development Platform • CSU Web Communications and ACNS favor .NET websites • Communication: Too little, too late • E-mail, documentation, open forums, feedback, training

35. Other specific problems • Complex Drupal templates • Difficult to add to legacy vendor applications, especially Library Catalog (Sage) and LibGuides • Segmentation faults • bad contributed modules, redirects or rewrite rules? solved by upgrading to PHP 5.2? • CKEditor problem • in non-IE browsers only saves changes in source view; conflict with CTI Flex theme • Caching • Sometimes old pages, CSS, and JavaScript are displayed • Staff accidentally created Drupal accounts • Wanted to log in elsewhere (staff wiki or web mail)

36. Related resources • All Library PDI sessions • http://lib.colostate.edu/pdi • Drupal in Libraries • http://libguides.colostate.edu/drupal • Drupal Assessment for CSU Libraries • http://www.gregvogl.net/webtips/drupal-assessment.html • Content Management Systems (2008 PDI) • http://www.gregvogl.net/webtips/cms.html • About the CSU Libraries Website • http://lib.colostate.edu/rds/webtips/about.html