Session: Showcasing student work: Forging ahead with WordPress

Who is this session for?

Content, Developer, Student, Project Management, Social Media

Session description

The marketing team within ASU Engineering maintains and operates an showcase website of student research projects presented at an event called the Fulton Forge. (https://forge.engineering.asu.edu). It is the largest digital collection of student-led research projects on campus, currently containing 1200+ projects presented over the last 12 semesters.

The content collected and organized on this website represents a collaborative effort between a several different team members to interview and photograph students, highlight faculty mentors, manage user-submitted content of a technical nature, wrangle proposals and research stipends and facilitate an in-person event. Central to all of these activities is WordPress. It's ability to organize all of the data and establish regular workflows for the various editors and operators is one of the keys to the success of the site.

In this presentation, you will learn:

• How we made the decision to move from a print-focused archive of student projects to a web-based version.
• Which WordPress tools and processes we leveraged organize and shape the content you can see and explore.
• How we adapted the website during the COVID pandemic to accommodate virtual events instead of in-person symposia.
• What benefits we receive from continuing to support the large effort needed to add new content each semester.