WWW NextGen: Transforming CU-Boulder Web Technologies

University Communications, ITS, and others around campus are busy working on a project called “WWW NextGen” or the next generation of the web at CU-Boulder. The project aims to overhaul the existing web technology services available to campus by adding many new services to select from. Goals of the project include:

• Align with the new CU System branding standards. The technologies developed by the project directly relate to the need to update our university web pages to align with the new branding specifications. These new services will make it much easier to redevelop web sites around the branding standards and stay up to date with changes over time.
• A generally available Web Content Management Solution. Based upon the Drupal web platform, the service will make it much easier for faculty, staff, and students to create and manage their web content. Users can create and edit their pages through a web browser and forgo the old practices of writing web pages on their local computers and uploading them to a web server.
• Greater support for custom web solutions developed by University Communications. Using similar Drupal technology, the project aims to create an environment University Communications can use to develop custom web sites on a web server platform built for high performance and high availability.
• Develop a web hosting environment colleges, schools, and departments can use to build their own custom web solutions on while still utilizing central campus server resources for hosting and operating the environments.

Another interesting aspect of the project is the use of a “co-development” model. Web developers and web system administrators from colleges, schools, and departments have been directly invited to participate in the effort. They are working alongside the core project team from University Communications and ITS to help develop the service requirements, assist with identifying important functionality, and provide analysis and development.

The project is in its’ infancy but making swift progress. You can look forward to future articles, campus brown bag presentations, email notices, and other communication as the project progresses. We look forward to making great strides in updating our web technologies and offering far more options people can select from for creating their web presence.

Eric Galyon (eric.galyon@colorado.edu) is a program director for ITS.