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College of Fine Arts Web Instruction | College of Fine Arts | University of Texas At Austin

University of Texas At Austin

Website Options On Campus

Here, we detail the pros and cons of available services to help you decide which option is right for you.

On this page:

University Blogs Service (UBS)

Pros

Cons

  • Restriction on the domain name path. As of 2019, the site must use the root URL pattern: http://sites.utexas.edu/[unique-identifier]. However,
    • the COFA Web team may be able to create a path from the parent or department website to redirect. Example, after clicking this link the path will redirect: http://finearts.utexas.edu/faculty
    • You may also purchase a .org from Network Solutions and redirect it to your site but the COFA Web team does not assist with managing those.
  • Limited event list capabilities. We primarily rely on pulling RSS feed for events from the parent or department website, https://sites.utexas.edu/cofacareers. There may be capability to use Google calendar and ical but we have not had success with it yet. It’s unclear i it’s the software or user error.
  • Limited theme style options
  • No additional content types, except News/Blog
  • No simple way to include hide reveal/accordion or tab layouts  for content creation.

UT Drupal Kit Managed

Example: https://utmesoamerica.org/

Pros

  • The COFA Web team will help set a site up for any official college entity
  • Very reliable and fully managed by central campus ITS
  • University-branded theme that looks like the main UT website
  • Features
    • News content type
    • Events Content Type
    • Profile/Directory content type
    • Large hero image on homepage
    • Embed video and audio from multiple sources
    • Multiple responsive grid layouts with fields that you can plug your content into
    • Hide reveal / accordion and tab layouts  for content creation
  • Social Media links
  • Customizable footer
  • Sandbox test site for experimenting in.
  • Google Analytics enabled by campus ITS Web team
  • Adhering to all university accessibility, security and privacy requirements built into the site as long as alternate text is added to all images

Cons

  • Cost depends on how many visitors to the site
  • Only one non-customizable theme
  • Features and functionality limited to those noted above as pros.

Pantheon Web Hosting (previously CMS Hosting Platform)

Example: https://rrk.finearts.utexas.edu/

Pros

  • For building custom Drupal or WordPress websites
  • Available distributions that includes the university-branded theme that can be customized by a developer

Cons

  • Cost depends on how many visitors to the site
  • Must have developer skills to be able to program a website. Although, hourly contract services and maintenance services are available for a fee
  • Responsible for adhering to all university accessibility, security and privacy requirements

UT Web

Example: https://finearts.utexas.edu/ which is built by and managed by the COFA Web team

Pros

  • Free

Cons

  • Requires experience using Unix-based web technologies such as HTML, PHP, and Apache, and are required to be able to manage files using the Unix command line, SSH or SFTP tools
  • Responsible for adhering to all university accessibility, security and privacy requirements
  • The college Web team is at full capacity and unable to build any new sites on this platform
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