Sector(s)

Team Members

cherrol, dadi.don, Gokuchen, liz.chen, steve wang, tammycao, zhongpeiyuan, zterry95

Project Team

Architect：Terry Zhang
Project Manager: Ye Chen
Business Lead: Liz Chen
UX Design: Steve Wang
Front-end Dev: Cherrol
Back-end Dev: Yu Tang, Tammy Cao
Content Manager：Peiyuan Zhong

Visit the site

Visit the site

Organizations Involved

Wenzhou-Kean University (WKU), as an international higher education institution, has always been committed to providing high-quality educational resources and a positive student experience. With the growth of the school and the increase in student numbers, the original website platform could no longer meet the increasing demands. The official website and the websites of various colleges, originally based on WordPress, had numerous issues, including chaotic backend management, unclear permissions, difficult maintenance, and frequent website crashes. Moreover, the website design was outdated and lacked dynamic elements, making it difficult to attract and retain visitors. Therefore, WKU decided to initiate the official website cluster project, upgrading the website platform comprehensively from WordPress to Drupal to enhance the website’s performance, management efficiency, and user experience.

Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome)

Back to top

Challenges

  1. The university was previously using the WordPress content management system and needed to retain the original data, presenting challenges in terms of data migration and adapting to the users’ accustomed workflow.
  2. The university aimed to optimize internal management methods and processes by separating the management of news content from the management of regular pages. News management required the news department to review and aggregate articles on the school’s news website, which would then be retrieved by each sub-site to display on their respective platforms.
  3. The university has its own design college, and the requirements for the overall style of the website differ from those of other institutions. Effectively showcasing the school’s culture and philosophy is an important aspect of this project.
Back to top

Solutions

This project consists of one main university site and seven independent sub-sites, including five colleges, the admissions website, and the news website. Davyin Internet Solution spent approximately five months to establish the entire website cluster for the university. This included exploring design styles, aligning business requirements for each site, collecting user needs, front-end and back-end development, integration testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), content migration from the original website, content uploading, security scanning, and testing, covering the complete website development process.

Design

In terms of design, we continued to use the “321” design strategy developed by Davyin Internet Solution, which involves creating three preliminary design concepts. These were refined through workshops and discussions, with input gathered from various business stakeholders. Two of these directions were chosen for further optimization based on feedback, and the final design was selected after consultation with experts and teachers from the Design College.

Design style comparison:

Performance & Security

The new platform has undergone significant work in terms of security design and implementation, enhancing the overall security. Through vulnerability scanning, security testing, and real-time monitoring, the website is protected from network attacks, and user data is effectively safeguarded. Also resolving the frequent crashes of the original platform, the new website has improved stability and page loading speed.

Content Management

Through interface calls, centralized management of news content was achieved, allowing the news from each college and the official website to be unified in management and publication. As the outlet for all news, the news website facilitates efficient distribution and personalized presentation of news content, meeting the needs of different colleges.

Back to top

Outcome

The new official website of Wenzhou-Kean University has received high praise from the school’s board of directors and the Design College, and has also been recognized by Kean University in the United States. Moreover, the construction of the website cluster system has addressed the pain points of the school’s technical department in the past, which involved the scattered maintenance and management of multiple sites. Now, all system version updates and security monitoring can be managed visually within the cluster platform, significantly enhancing the robustness and security of the website system, as well as improving work efficiency.

Back to top
Why Drupal was chosen

Throughout the selection process, Wenzhou-Kean University placed a strong emphasis on the platform’s security and scalability. Drupal has earned a high reputation in the higher education sector, and its advantages in building university websites have been validated through numerous case studies. Moreover, DAVYIN INTERNET SOLUTION has alleviated the university’s concerns about localizing Drupal in China, thanks to its experience in constructing Drupal-based websites for several Chinese universities.

Technical Specifications

Drupal version: