TYPO3 CMS and Higher Educational Institutions - a Success Story

Successful higher education websites have much in common with large-scale business websites. They must meet many requirements, speak clearly and make it easy for everybody to find what they want. TYPO3 CMS is a widely adopted content management system (CMS) that performs well in building sites for both. In today’s post we’ll take a closer look at some of the features that make the software truly attractive for higher education institutions.

Higher education websites need to serve many audiences: faculty and staff of various departments, current students from around the world (and their parents), prospective students, alumni, the media, and the general public.

Their multipurpose platforms must be high-functioning, modern and visually enhancing. And despite a complex range of content and being multilingual, their sites must be easy to navigate. Also, their websites must deliver a quality web experience across multiple devices. Because who, if not today's’ students, are mobile users and internet savvy? Today's students are tomorrow’s professionals, and nowhere is it more important to keep up with the latest technologies than in higher education.

TYPO3 CMS can do all this and more. It has become a preferred website platform for hundreds of institutions of higher learning. TYPO3 CMS is powerful, flexible and has the structure it takes to develop complex websites which are nevertheless user-friendly.

1. Security: always a top priority

Software vulnerabilities can have serious security implications. Safeguarding personal records and information is of utmost importance in any area of the web.

The TYPO3 community is very serious about security. The TYPO3 security team follows best practices and a consistent process regarding both TYPO3 CMS as well as 3rd party extensions. The security team uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to track and evaluate possible security issues, and provides security advisories.

The TYPO3 core team provides free security and bug fix releases for all actively maintained Long-Term-Support (LTS) versions (currently that’s version 7 and 8) as well sprint releases for upcoming LTS versions (at the time of this writing, that’s version 9, which is scheduled to be released in October 2018). All (of the few!) security fixes are logged.

If your website update gets delayed, then using an older TYPO3 version doesn’t have to be a headache. The TYPO3 GmbH, the commercial arm of TYPO3 CMS, offers optional extended support, which gets you security fixes even if your version is no longer supported by the core team.

2. Multisite: one administrative interface for lots of sites

Modern universities and colleges have a complex range of sites, departments, intranets, and much more. The TYPO3 built-in multisite functionality allows you to use a single TYPO3 installation to support large numbers of individual sites that share, reuse, or syndicate content and configuration.

The advantage of centralizing the management, the governance and deployment of all sites is obvious: less effort is needed to create a network of sites and manage multiple digital properties. Staying relevant in the digital age requires a strategic vision for institutions as a whole. Multisites help meet strategic goals and have a direct impact on your reputation and credibility.

3. Multilingual: maximizing your reach

TYPO3’s Content Management Suite comes with the essential functions for creating and delivering multilingual websites with easy to use features like side-by-side content translation.

The keyword here is localization. You can launch your website in as many languages as you need with one single installation. By having a multilingual site, you’re appealing to folks from far and wide throughout the world simply because you tore down the language barrier.

Localization plays a central role in success in the global economy.

Since the beginning, TYPO3 has had a powerful yet simple localization audit system integrated into the core, that helps in translating and managing content as it is created. This makes TYPO3 CMS a good player in the global marketplace.

4. Access rights

TYPO3 allows you to set up the user authorization system exactly how you want it to be. Every user can be given different permissions to carry out their individual tasks. Access to content can also be restricted to specific areas and groups if necessary. These TYPO3 control features are particularly handy on university websites where professors, students, alumni, and site visitors require unique different access rights. The website administrator can give access to:

• an entire website

• specific page branches (e.g. for a specific faculty)

• specific pages

• a single extension

• or even one specific content element!

A nice side effect of this is that the administrative interface is then less complex for those using it, which makes work more efficient.

5. Content management is extremely easy

Managing content can be a daunting task for non-technical people. TYPO3 allows anyone to manage day-to-day content updates with ease, be it adding new pages, images, documents, videos or any other kind of content.

6. Responsive

TYPO3 CMS makes it easy to deliver smooth, responsive website experiences across multiple devices. It’s mobile-friendly out of the box. The administrative interface is itself responsive and has built-in responsive preview functionality, supporting working from any device and screen size.

TYPO3 CMS has the functionality it takes to claim its place as a sound platform for creating and maintaining higher education websites.

Good business partners are critical to success. Our TYPO3 partner agencies and freelancers do remarkable work every day and there are plenty of qualified TYPO3 partners to choose from. Use our listings to connect with one of the leading TYPO3 CMS website design businesses today. The companies have been reviewed based on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative statistics.