UGent: centralized platform for all university websites

We helped Ghent University to move to a centrally managed Drupal platform, ensuring a seamless and consistent visitor experience across all university websites.
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Challenge

Previously, each faculty or campus at UGent developed and maintained its own website, often using different technologies and branding. This resulted in a fragmented website architecture that lacked overall vision. As a result, visitor experiences were inconsistent, and decentralized management led to inefficiencies.

Solution

Dropsolid Experience Platform has enabled the university’s IT team to add new websites within a matter of a few clicks. Now, all of Ghent University’s subsites are managed through a single platform. Thanks to SCIM integration, all user roles and permissions are managed via the existing Microsoft Azure environment. Combined with proactive IT maintenance from our Dropsolid team, this setup ensures a more secure system.

Result

The ability to quickly set up new websites on the centralized platform is a significant timesaver for every department. In addition, the platform also enhances website design consistency and improves the overall visitor experience. Centralized management also simplifies the deployment of security updates. Our on-site Drupal experts also share their knowledge with the UGent team, further fostering continuous learning in the workplace.

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Partnering for Drupal expertise

Legacy website-building systems and technologies often result in inconsistent browsing experiences and additional overhead costs, including hosting fees, staff training, maintenance and security. Recognizing the inefficiencies in their web development and maintenance process, Ghent University decided to take action. With limited in-house Drupal expertise, the university’s IT team partnered with our Dropsolid experts to create a centralized Drupal environment, serving as the foundation for all of the university’s subsites.

Centralized platform and continuous collaboration

Our Dropsolid consultants assisted UGent in migrating existing tools and properties to a centralized Drupal environment and in building new websites. A unified cloud backbone like Dropsolid Experience Platform enables the fast and cost-effective creation of new websites. Through continuous collaboration with a dedicated consultant from our Drupal team, Ghent University continues to optimize its existing styleguide further, implement technical changes and updates and learn more Drupal best practices.

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About UGent

Ghent University, the second-largest university in Belgium, is home to 50,000 students and 9,000 staff members. As a top-tier educational institution in Europe, it hosts world-renowned research groups and serves as a vital hub for learning and innovation.