Studyfinder for universities with TYPO3
The Technical University of Munich is one of the leading universities and sets benchmarks throughout Europe for entrepreneurial universities with its innovative fields. In order to meet the constantly high demands placed on a CMS, the TUM has been using TYPO3 for more than 10 years, both for its main website and the numerous central instances of individual web presences. TYPO3 is especially known for being stable and secure but also for its flexibility and individualization.
Studyfinder
Simple search fields quickly reach their limits given the extensive number and complexity of possible courses of study and degrees for our future professionals. Therefore, TUM together with in2code developed the extension studyfinder a few years ago in order to enter the different study programs in a structured and centralized way - as simple as filling out a form. Not only for the responsible persons in the administration the daily maintenance is simplified but also prospective students can easily find a suitable study program by clear presentation with different smart filter possibilities (f.e. academic title, locations, a field of study, etc.) and have afterwards all important information directly at hand. After development, TUM decided to make the extension freely available for the TYPO3 community and in the meantime, it has already become a university favorite. Many not only use the extension but also request additional features, which in turn can be used by other customers. This ensures future maintenance for upcoming TYPO3 versions and a constantly growing feature set.
Multi-media web presence
The most modern topic areas, such as AI, quantum technology, or the latest virus research, give rise to the desire for a multi-media design of the website. This is where the strength of TYPO3's easy expandability and individualization comes into play. A wide variety of integrations are used on the TUM website, creating a multifaceted enhancement alongside pure text and supporting the workflow for students, teachers and researchers. For example, the Panopto integration enables professors to teach online, Spotify provides the latest presidential news as a podcast on the way to study or work, and a wide variety of media libraries such as Arte, ZDF and ARD present thematically appropriate videos. Of course, social media such as YouTube, Instagram and Twitter are not missing either. Now information on the website flows seamlessly between content creators and readers.
Committed to Accessibility
Another important point revolves around the accessibility of content. Here, the current BITV regulation for accessibility plays a major role and the website is continuously evaluated and optimized with features such as Aria attributes. When it comes to accessibility, a clear structure and easy findability of required content is an ongoing core topic. The connection of the statutes database is a good example of this. Content that is legally required to be published is retrieved directly via the interface and can be structured, filtered and always displayed clearly and up to date.
The language certificate finder enables international students to easily find the necessary language certificates for a course of study in Germany. Additionally, the accessibility of the TYPO3 system itself and the maintenance of the content must be considered. TYPO3 itself attaches great importance to barrier-free access and is constantly improving, but when setting up a TYPO3 system, great importance should also be attached to backend usability (hiding unneeded fields, individual previews of elements, clean structuring of functionalities) and functions to create content (in the case of TUM, placeholders, responsibilities for different page areas, link validator for broken links).
Gallery & Features
