Supporting Faculty Websites A proposal for individual, group, event, and specialty sites

Supporting Faculty WebsitesA proposal for individual, group, event, and specialty sites

Developed by…

SEAS Communications OfficeComputing @ SEAS

Information Security & Risk Management Office

October 2012

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Agenda Page

Current Model•Inventory and Profile of Current Faculty-based Sites 3•Plone CMS & Templates 9

Future Support Model•Drupal (CMS) / Acquia and Amazon EC2 (Hosting) 13•OpenScholar Instance 19•Database and Web Services 23•Security 26

Proposal to Computing Advisory Group 30

Inventory and Profile of Current State

Web Hosting Infrastructure Overview105 Websites hosted for Faculty2 SharePoint farms consisting of 6 Windows servers per farm1 SharePoint staging farm consisting of 3 Windows servers2 Linux Web Servers running Apache with PHP enabled2 Linux Web Server running Apache with PHP/Perl disabled2 Linux Web Servers running Apache with PHP enabled and local instance of MySQL1 Linux MySQL serverPlone environment comprised of 6 Linux ServersPlus AC equipmentServers are shared with non-faculty websitesCurrent count of all sites last counted at 264 (missing all old AC sites)Complete inventory currently maintained on ac.seas.harvard.edu Google Docs space with access available upon request

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Examples:Community Interesthttp://imechanica.org

Group Wikihttp://hips.seas.harvard.edu

Research Grouphttp://hips.seas.harvard.edu

Personalhttp://valiant.seas.harvard.edu

Research Center/Institutehttp://worldmaterialsnetwork.seas.harvard.edu

Research Projectshttp://robobees.seas.harvard.edu

Faculty Sites by Type

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ExamplesSchool Office/Departmenthttp://safety.seas.harvard.edu

Eventshttp://weitzfest.seas.harvard.edu

School Initiativehttp://educationalprograms.seas.harvard.edu

Research Grouphttp://crozier.seas.harvard.edu

Research Center/Institutehttp://worldmaterialsnetwork.seas.harvard.edu

Research Projecthttp://robobees.seas.harvard.edu

Faculty Plone Website Overview

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Inventory and Profile of Current StateSite done right

http://biomaterials.seas.harvard.edu

•Professionally designed and easy to navigate

•Last updated Tue Jul 24 16:33:49 EDT 2012

•SEAS branded with prominent links to University and School

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Site that could be better http://liquids.seas.harvard.edu

•Outdated web design

•“maintained by DEAS IT”

•Last updated Mon Jun 27 11:39:56 EDT 2011

•No School or University Branding

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Current Model: Plone & TemplatesPlone Overview

•Reasons for initial selection•Pros/Cons of the platform•Current faculty site deployment method

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Current Model: Plone & TemplatesPlone Template Example

–Simple one page design–Easy to create/maintain–Photo banner allows for some custom branding–Layout and colors are fixed

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Current Model: Plone & TemplatesLess Compliant Faculty Site / branding

– Poorly selected images– No logos or immediate

references to Harvard or SEAS– Non-professional layout– Poor legibility

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Current Model: Plone & TemplatesCommunications support for current sites

–URL selection–Architecture decisions–Content suggestions–CMS training–Occasional content / image updates

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Future Model: Drupal & Vendors

SEAS public/intranet website relaunch

Rationale– Last redesign in 2007-2008– Current site has served us well, but we need to adapt

to responsive design/social networking, “apps” and modular plug-ins (e.g. EMS, etc.)

– We lack the internal staffing for hosting & maintenanceAim

– Provide a 21st century web presence for a 21st century engineering school and better connect, engage, inform, and excite core internal and external audiences

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SEAS public website relaunch

Planned enhancements– Integrate consistent University design guidelines– Improve existing layout and architecture– Reflect the new academic organization of the school

• area-based pages/key priority areas• new educational programs

– Utilize “responsive design” for optimal viewing on all devices– Offer portal-style pages for prospective and current students– Store content in a more database-driven way

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SEAS intranet website re-launch

Planned enhancements– Change name of the site to Faculty & Staff Portal– Improve layout and architecture– Reflect the realigned SEAS administration

• Improved office/department pages• Greater ownership/control of content• Collaborative tools

– Respond to engagement survey requests by offering news home page, easier to find content, staff profiles, improved directory listings, and more

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CMS: Drupal

Rationale– Open source platform (important for faculty)– Standard CMS technology for the Center/HPAC– Has/is becoming the de-facto standard in academia– Our web developers have experience/expertise – Broad-based internal and external technical support– Integrates with OpenScholar

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External Hosting: Acquia & Amazon EC2

Rationale– Leverages the MSA between Acquia and Harvard– Provides robust 24-7 support– Enhances security, CMS updates– Allows us to easily grow & evolve– Frees up staff time for development & creativity– Hardware upgrades/space/backups are taken care of on

an economy of scale that we cannot match– Best practice for industry/academia

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Other drivers

– Future Harvard campaign– Better solution for video– Alignment with Center’s digital strategy– Using the web to improve how we work– Student recruitment– edX

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Web Publishing Initiative (WPI) and OpenScholar Instance at Harvard

• Harvard-supported Drupal distribution• Designed for academic sites• Self-serve—anyone at Harvard can

have a scholar.harvard.edu site simply by signing up

• Many Harvard faculty members already use it

• Can be self- or centrally-hosted• Offshoots have been created to better

support project sites• Is under active development

OpenScholar

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Web Publishing Initiative (WPI) and OpenScholar Instance at Harvard OpenScholar will:

◦ Support faculty members who want a rich, flexible site environment, but do not want to write their own site code

◦ Help collect many faculty sites in one place◦ Help enforce branding requirements◦ Help free up Computing@SEAS staff for other tasks

OpenScholar won't:◦ Be a solution for everyone

▪ Sites that require custom code may still need to be done elsewhere but it may still be of value to encourage faculty to contain their static content within OpenScholar and only host their custom work outside the OS system

Solving Our Problems with OpenScholar

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Web Publishing Initiative (WPI) and OpenScholar Instance at HarvardStarting Out with OpenScholar @ SEAS

• Plan to host with the OpenScholar group

• They will:• Provide HPAC-approved

templates we can build on and customize (see left for style)

• Handle upgrades• Manage the servers

(Acquia/EC2)• Provide user support

• We will:• Provide branded templates• Provide faculty with

personalized URLs (facname.seas.harvard.edu)

• Market this hosting option and encourage its use

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Web Publishing Initiative (WPI) and OpenScholar Instance at Harvard

Due to OpenScholar's FOSS model, we can write our own modules and offer them back to the community (eg. EMS integration module, directory integration)

We can continue to add to and modify our templates as necessary

Future projects might include edX integration

Collaborating and Expanding OpenScholar

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Database and Web Services Direction

SEAS will greatly benefit from having its faculty data consolidated on a single platform and database. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how many professors have received an specific award or medal? What academic area is the fastest growing? What course receives the most student in a single term, whether in person or online? What professors have received a NSF grant? Having the answers to these questions will help increase student recruitment and SEAS recognition, for example. Prospective students and alumni would be thrilled to hear about SEAS accomplishments on the Dean’s travels.

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SEAS is evaluating use of the

HKS Faculty Information

System


Having an unified approach to faculty sites and profiles allows getting this data easier than we do right now and SEAS internal departments can do their jobs more efficiently. For example, this system would allow Communications to know the most up to date information to say to the press whenever a press release is due. Academic Planning would know how many courses a professor is teaching and which ones are more likely to continue being student drivers for SEAS. Academic Affairs would have their appointments known in no-time. Research and Planning would know how many professors in a specific topic and concentration are available at SEAS.

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SEAS will look to leverage

the new Identity &

Access Management

(IAM) program


Faculty members would know real-time how many visitors her/his website and course videos are having and even monitor those visitors to gain more insights like geographical distribution, even enhancing security in cooperation with HUIT resources. And having the faculty websites on an uniform web address structure (www.seas.harvard.edu/nameofthefacultymember) would allow us verify that every link on their sites is valid and up to date. Existing and new APIs will help us display and distribute relevant information and new websites can benefit from this wealth of information. Communications could even showcase faculty websites hand-picked or at random and display them in the school’s website as in the spotlight, giving the professors more exposure to reach prospective students.

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SEAS will progressively leverage image and

video libraries

Future Model: Security

SEAS Needs a Shift in Websites Security Approach

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Future Model: Security Proposed Solutions in the Next Year– Implement unified infrastructure and management of

faculty websites by Computing@SEAS– All active websites hosted on EECS server should be

moved to the servers at MD B151 or 60 Oxford St.– All non-owned SEAS websites should be archived– Classify faculty websites based on criticality and

sensitivity: • High – dynamic websites (custom PHP, SQL, JavaScripts…)• Medium - Older non-dynamic websites owned by faculty who

started their sites before CMS • Low – static websites

– Implement change and release management for all SEAS faculty websites 27


Proposed Solutions in the Next Year (con’t)•Design, and implement new SEAS website environment with Web Application Firewalls (WAF) •Migrate already classified faculty websites behind SEAS application firewalls in the following order: first “High”, after that “Medium”, and lastly “Low” classified sites•Proactive run regular vulnerability sweeps of existing sites with HUIT provided Hailstorm as well as locally owned Netsparker and if necessary, fixes and rebuilds

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• Long Term Solution - SEAS Needs a Shift in Website Security Perspectives:

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Recommendations1. All new and re-written SEAS websites should be programmed as the Drupal/OpenScholar platform,

Static HTML using Dreamweaver, MediaWiki or WordPress. This will reduce the number of platforms from 7 to 4.

2. The new SEAS website will be database driven, have dynamic content presentation, be a better solution for video and be aligned with Center’s digital strategy.

3. Hosting alternatives include cloud vendors (e.g., the School’s main website will be hosted in the Amazon EC2 cloud through Harvard’s business partner Acquia), our Maxwell Dworkin B151 data center and HUIT’s data center at 60 Oxford St.

4. The SEAS Communications department will offer URL selection, architecture decisions, content suggestions, occasional content / image updates, documentation, templates and training on Drupal and OpenScholar.

5. The SEAS Communications department will ensure all Faculty websites meet a minimum set of School website design requirements, including branding. (Having high quality, consistently branded, functional faculty websites is important for the image of the school and for the faculty's own ability to recruit quality students).

6. Computing@SEAS will provide design, migration, database and infrastructure services for the conversion of Custom PHP and Plone websites.

7. Computing@SEAS will provide consulting on the use of Dreamweaver, MediaWiki and Wordpress.8. The Information Security Office will provide new facilities like firewalls and perform vulnerability

scans on the faculty websites 2X per year with appropriate mitigation measures taken within 30 days of each report.

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Milestones & Timeline

1. Sign Acquia Managed Services Contract for SEAS website 10/5/122. Classify Faculty Websites H-M-L based on criticality & sensitivity

10/12/123. Gain support and approval from SEAS Computing Advisory Group 10/19/124. Select design firm and sign contract 10/26/125. Publish new SEAS OpenScholar Guide to Faculty 10/31/126. Hosted Environment for Development and Testing Up 11/9/127. Put in place new Web Application Firewalls for Faculty Websites

11/30/128. Begin content migration and new content writing 12/1/129. New SEAS website Prototype 2/28/13 Live 8/1/1310.5 Faculty website re-designs amongst Static/MediaWiki/WordPress

per FY 11.All Plone websites converted to Drupal/OpenScholar 6/30/1412.All custom PHP websites converted to Drupal/OpenScholar 6/30/15

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Collaboration Amongst Many …

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Summary Benefits

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Supporting Faculty Websites A proposal for individual, group, event, and specialty sites

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