Drupal is cool

For my graduate assistantship, I’ve been working with Dr. Stephanie Schlitz of the English department to create an online publication using Drupal, an open-source Content Management System (CMS). My first inclination for this post was to copy and paste the content from the flyer I already completed on this topic for the Corporate Advisory Council (CAC). However, I suspect that the flyer is booooooring because during the student presentations, in which the CAC members use the flyers as a guide,  the majority of the people who stopped at my computer only asked directions to the cool projects.

But Drupal IS cool. For those of you not familiar, it’s used to create dynamic websites ranging from small personal blogs to large corporate sites. Here are some examples of Drupal-powered websites:

The White House

Creative Bits

Classroom Clips

The beauty of Drupal is that because it’s open source, there are developers contributing new modules everyday. A module is a piece of functionality or feature that can be downloaded and added to a site. For example:

• Interactive calendar
• Glossary that automatically highlights a specific term throughout the site and provides a pop-up definition on mouse-over
• Image rotator that continually fades images in and out
• e-Commerce

You can go to Drupal Modules to get an idea of the diversity. Of course not all the modules are top notch, and not many come with instructions.

Drupal has a bit of a learning curve, and if I hadn’t been forced to do it for my GA, I would have quit the second week of September. But now that my feet are wet, I’m addicted. I’m already creating the next website in my head… maybe something to display my Mom’s ever growing collection of “antiques.”

~Elaine Gustus