Completed Drupal site or project URL: https://news.uchicago.edu

The University of Chicago News Office is the central hub for all outward-facing press at the University—from new academic majors to presidential visits. The staff of 10-12 news officers create and publish over 1000 stories, videos, and photo galleries per year, many of which get picked up by major TV networks, newspapers, Reddit, and other outlets.

In 2011, the News Office developed a Drupal 6/Pressflow-powered site, which by mid-2014 was starting to feel the weight of the evolving web with pressures for responsive design, better speed during high-traffic events, and better content management tools. With over 20,000 content nodes, however, moving the site would be no easy task.

In July 2014, the News Office contracted with Web Services to “Upgrade news.uchicago.edu from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, preserving existing functionality. Update the design, including making it responsive.” Two years later, the new news.uchicago.edu launched: fully mobile-friendly, running on an upgraded hosting platform, and almost completely rebuilt from the ground up.

Key modules/theme/distribution used: Acquia PurgeBootstrapCache ExpirationEditorEntity EmbedInline Entity FormMediaMedia: YouTubeMetatagMigrateRidiculously Responsive Social Share ButtonsSite AlertText list formatterTokenTeam members: froboycj101tommy.thomasjessabra