I was looking forward to taking EDLD 5365 because Web Design has been my hobby of choice for many years. I was even more excited to find out that the book for the class, Deliver First Class Web Sites was a book that I had already read during my free time. Writing a Project Charter, Web Publishing Policy, and a Content Management Procedure was a rewarding task. I was excited about using Drupal because I had read about the open source content management system but I had never used it to create a website. However, the experience was a disappointment. All we did was add different types of content such as text, images, audio, and video. According to Kaiser, “A good web content management system should make the management of your web site content efficient and easy” (2006, p. 51). Drupal seemed very limited and confusing for multiple users. Once you created your page they were not automatically linked together. Some people were losing their work because you could edit all user created pages.
I have created a lot of websites using WordPress and even a few using Joomla and I was still having a hard time finding my way around Drupal. I had to search Google and Youtube for solutions to problems. After collaborating with other class members online I realized that there is more to Drupal but some modules were not installed. The assignment was completed and I met all the requirements but I was in no way happy with the quality of my completed work.
After completing this assignment I would not recommend a school use Drupal for their website. I will one day give Drupal a try again but until then I will recommend WordPress Multisite for school websites. I recently wrote a Project Charter to create a website for our school library and will use the Web Publishing Policy and Content Management Procedure I created in this class as a guide for the expansion of the website for the entire school.
References
Kaiser, S. (2006). Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists. VIC, Australia: SitePoint.