Archetype 5 unwraps the design and development of the newly launched University of Colorado system-wide website: http://www.cu.edu
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The challenge (cookies and creme): Develop the new site in Drupal, make it nice for faculty, staff, affiliates, students and the public – and responsive too.
The challenge (chunky monkey): Work with 30+ different University departments simultaneously - keep them relatively happy and focused on the greater good :) Give them tools to deploy complex HTML/JS elements such as tabs, accordions, toggles, buttons, and columns without any HTML experience required.
The challenge (rocky road): Create a top level University system-wide site that allows multiple departments to spin up their own sites with segmented navigation, segmented content, segmented blocks, and segmented taxonomies all in the same Drupal instance. Give them a whole bunch of options in the process, let them change their minds after the fact.
Attendees will come away with a better understanding of (1) how multiple department sites can be deployed within one Drupal instance using organic groups (2) custom responsive layouts (3) advanced content-input tools, and (4) the challenges and opportunities associated with large University web sites.
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During the session, A5 will demonstrate the following:
An extensive implementation of organic groups that is utilized to rapidly develop and generate department sites, examples include:
/university-information-systems
/office-of-the-president
/regents
and 25+ others.
How department sites reside within the same Drupal instance while maintaining completely segmented menus, content and taxonomy structures.
How departments can be deployed as subs of the main site - maintaining the cu.edu main menu in addition to the department menu, or can choose to have their site "stand on its own". A5 will demonstrate rapid deployment of a complete department site within the session.
The development and implementation of CU's first system wide directory search that simultaneously returns results of 35,000+ faculty and staff from four separate University of Colorado System campuses.
The development details of a custom solution for "blocks" and "view blocks" allowing users to create, place, "own" and deploy blocks without having to access Drupal's system level blocks or theming.
A5 will also demonstrate a custom implementation of "shortcodes" that enables even the most novice content creator to deploy inline tabs, accordions, toggles, information boxes, buttons, columns, embedded nodes, and even Views directly within the body of pages.