Since I started this blog in February 2005 with its version 1.2, WordPress has become one of (probably the) best online publishing tool out there. Can you believe version 2.9 will be released in a couple of months?
Naturally, as higher ed print magazines have started to go digital or even paperless, more and more college editors choose WordPress to power the online version of their publications.
Swarthmore College Bulletin is a good example of this trend.
That’s why I asked Nathan Stazewski, Web Multimedia Specialist at Swarthmore College’s Communications/News & Information Office, to answer a few questions about the online magazine and its WordPress implementation.
1) What design theme did you use?
We used the BranfordMagazine theme as a jumping off point and highly modified both the look and functionality. Since WordPress is really a blogging platform, the most difficult part was getting it to pull together content from a single issue. This was accomplished by setting each post’s “publish date” to be from the month of the appropriate issue (July 2009 magazine articles are all published with dates falling sometime in July 2009 even if we’re preparing them in June). Long story short, our theme’s custom coding is very specific to the way our magazine works.
2) How long did the implementation take?
Our implementation took around 4 months. Our Web Designer, Steve, worked on the look of the site and I worked on the backend.
3) What plugin do you use? Why?
The main plugins we use are:
- Akismet – This automatically deals with most spam comments.
- Lightbox – When you’re in an article and click on a photo, this is what makes them pop open with a nice effect.
- More-fields – This allows us to include extra information that WordPress doesn’t automatically ask for (such as Related Links, Illustrators, etc.)
I also built a custom plugin just for our particular needs so that it could check a magazine issue for possible problems before we make it live on the Internet.
4) What advice would you give colleagues creating an online version of a magazine using WordPress
If someone was looking to use WordPress as the backend for their magazine, I would definitely suggest they use the BranfordMagazine theme as a starting point. Also, this project wouldn’t have been possible without a PHP programmer and a great web designer. I think the fact that we had a programmer (myself) and a designer (Steve) really let us both work to our strengths which pushed out a much better product than if either one of us had to do the whole project ourselves.
Do YOU use WordPress for the online version of your magazine or newsletter?
Post your web address in the comments. I’m currently looking for other great examples and possibly more folks to interview.
About two years ago I worked with a developer to launch our wordpress-powered magazine. The challenge at the time seemed to be modifying the design to match each issue.
http://ualr.edu/magazine/?cat=10
http://ualr.edu/magazine/?cat=11
http://ualr.edu/magazine/?cat=13
an expanded incoherent post on my goals for the project:
http://collegewebguy.com/2007/06/12/bringing-a-university-magazine-to-the-web/
all in all if I had it to do over again, I would have lobbied for simply modifying an existing wordpress theme. You can really hit the ground running that way.
Franklin & Marshall College has been using WordPress for its magazine for over a year. We modified a version of Mimbo Pro:
http://magazine.fandm.edu
What reputable higher ed mag has gone paperless?
Despite your repeated attempts to flog this senseless either/or debate, I do agree that WordPress is a great platform for a digital option–that complements the printed piece.
We use WordPress for our complete suite of news sites, which are similiarly branded but unique portals to targeted types of content. Our sites are located at http://research.ua.edu, http://uanews.ua.edu, and http://dialog.ua.edu. The design and implementation was all custom and in-house, using a number of plug-ins to achieve a highly-customized and high-functiontioning suite of sites that work well together and allow non-technical users to update content.
My “repeated attempts to flog this senseless either/or debate,” Matt?
Really?
Looks like you didn’t read this post.
Thanks for sharing your examples, Drew, Tim and Andy. I’ll check them out.
We’re also using WordPress for the online version of our magazine, also called the Bulletin. We implemented it over the summer.
http://blog.coloradocollege.edu/bulletin
Forgot to mention that we’re using a heavily customized version of Nelo.
We’re using wordpress for several of our magazines … works great! I can get an issue of our largest magazine online in about 2 days. Smaller mags only take about half a day. The key is being able to customize your templates for the magazine model.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-engineering/
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-business/
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-magazine/
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/arts-and-science/
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/peabody-reflector/
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/acorn-chronicle/
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/quarternote/
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for sharing your examples, very cool!
The University of Hawai’i System has been using WordPress for our magazine since Sept 08 and just recently launched our weekly News@UH faculty/staff newsletter on a WordPress MU install
http://hawaii.edu/malamalama — Monochrome theme
http://hawaii.edu/newsatuh — Elements of SEO theme
Both themes had only minor customization in consultation with a graphic designer.
For the magazine, we have a mix of print/online and online-only issues (just revised to two of each per year) tho we are now producing more multimedia “web extras”
http://www.hawaii.edu/malamalama/category/web-extras/
:~j
I’d be interested in seeing any examples of academic journals that have moved to wordpress.
To those of you who are using WordPress, please take a look at — and edit — this Google spreadsheet for WordPress in Higher Education.
http://bit.ly/4BZA3X
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