Plone in Higher Education
World Plone Day 2008
Cambridge, MA
Michael Trachtman - Partner, Vercadia Systems
Nate Aune - Founder, Jazkarta

Overview
Intranets
Directories and Bibliographies
Microsites
Online Courseware

Intranets
News and Event publishing - newsfeeds, calendars
Department landing pages
Important documents - policies, operating procedures,
forms
FAQs
Access for staff *and* students

Intranets
Workflow and Access Control
•Simple workflows are often enough
•Security planning is important
Integration with user directories (such as LDAP)
•Biographical vs. Non-biographical data
Tools - FacultyStaffDirectory and CMFBibliography
•Access to directories through Public site

Directories
FacultyStaffDirectory
• Headed by WebLion group at Penn State
University
• Faculty, Staff and Student Profiles
• Departments, Classifications and Committees
• Can be customized and integrated with central
user directories (like LDAP)
• Extensible via SchemaExtender
Recent post-conference release (2.1) includes:
• Integration with bibliography plugin
• Refactored setup and improved documentation
• Bugfixes

Microsites
Universities often want to Common elements
create separate web
•Shared infrastructure
identities
•Separate visual theme (but
•Schools with adherence to
•Academic and Business university standards)
Units
•Separate access control
•Faculty specifications
•Research Groups •Online procurement

Microsite Procurement

Microsites - Additional Examples

Microsites - Learn More
Kurt Bendl and Brandon Gaddie at
2008 Plone Symposium East
http://plone.tv/media/1099397685

Courseware
eduCommons Adopters
• Plone-based OpenCourseWare • College of Eastern Utah
management system
• Wheelock University
• Helps develop and manage an
open access collection of • Escuela Nacional de Salud
Pública (Cuba)
course materials
• Korea University
• Kyung Hee University
http://cosl.usu.edu/projects/
• Novell
educommons/adopters
• ...and many others

Resources
On the Web Events
• Plone.org - FacultyStaffDirectory, • 2009 Plone Symposium East
CMFBibliography
http://www.plone.org May 26-29, Penn State University
• Plone.tv - “education” http://weblion.psu.edu/events/
http://plone.tv/tagging/tags/ plone-symposium-east-2009
education
• WebLion operates a Plone-for-
education portal (primarily for
PSU folks, but great general info)
http://weblion.psu.edu/
• Plone.net - case studies

Thanks!