About the Project

The idea of redesigning and migrating the CBCSA website was originally logged in fall of 2018 due to the need for more control and flexibility. Furthermore, the staff had simply inherited the site from their predecessors making it difficult to fully understand the structure of the site and provide standard content maintenance.

However, when it became known in the fall of 2019 that Central IT was sunsetting their Custom Sites Platform and that all websites utilizing that service would have to find new homes, CBCSA became a prime candidate in the first wave of sites to be transitioned.

Plugins Used

These are the plugins used to make the site look and function the way it does and excludes any admin plugins such as User Role Editor or CMS Tree View.

Before and after

Method

A key driver behind this project was to give the new staff of CBCSA true ownership of the site. So, rather than inheriting a site, they would be pioneering a new website adding their particular stamp to it. They wanted a website that was engaging to their students and could communicate all of the programs and activities they planned to grow as part of the operations of the center.

One challenge posed by the project was the concept of Black Community Calendar. Many other websites and units have requested calendars in the past and it was easy to either implement The Events Calendar, direct users to the USC Events Calendar, or a combination of both. Additionally, Student Affairs had just started using the Engage Calendar from Campus Labs. So, special thought and care had to be put into the reasoning behind setting up a calendar and processes behind adding and maintaining events had to be created.

As art of the center’s mission, it was decided that the CBCSA would act as a hub of events.

The Events Calendar offers an extension that allows people from the community to be able to submit their own events. However, the staff would then be in the business of moderating and maintaining user accounts. And since Provost IT isn’t able to connect WordPress to Shibboleth at this time, it posed a problem.

In the end, the staff had decided that a swivel chair solution would work best for the taking in new events. A Gravity Form was set up to receive information and a staff member would vet the info and place it into the calendar if it was approved. If submissions to the Black Community Calendar ever became unmanageable, then we would revisit The Events Calendar: Community Events extension.

Project Risks

Risk – Content Delivery

Because much of the content on the old CBCSA website was outdated a lot of content had to be created. Furthermore, new sections within the new site did not have corollaries on the old website, which apmplfied the issue.

Risk – Resource Scheduling

Because the Center for Black Cultural Student Affairs has a small staff that continually interacts with students, their availability to work on project related tasks was limited.

The two major risks of Content Delivery and Resource Schedule caused the project numerous delays. What could’ve been accomplished in 5-6 months took a full 9 months.

Additional screenshots