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Brian DeConinck

Brian DeConinck

Digital accessibility specialist. Formerly at NC State University, now in the private sector.

From our Learning Library

5 people you should know on your campus

WPCampus 2019Lightning Talk
Subjects:Governance, Strategy, Community
Date:July 26, 2019

Let's talk accessibility

WPCampus 2019Panel Discussion
Subject:Accessibility
Date:July 26, 2019

The WPCampus Gutenberg Accessibility Audit

WPCampus Online 2019General Lecture Session
Subjects:Accessibility, Gutenberg, Community
Date:January 31, 2019

GutenReady for the Gutenpocalypse

WPCampus 2018General Lecture Session
Subjects:Usability, HighEdWeb Member, User interface, Gutenberg, Change management, Communication
Date:July 13, 2018

Incorporating the aXe Accessibility Testing Engine Plugin in WordPress

WPCampus Online 2018General Lecture Session
Speakers:Brian DeConinck, Crystal Tenan
Subjects:Accessibility, Plugins
Date:January 30, 2018

Mobilizing 300 reluctant content creators

WPCampus 2017General Lecture Session
Subjects:Multisite, Content, Governance, HighEdWeb Member
Date:July 14, 2017

From our Community Blog

GutenDay at NC State

In addition to this blog post, you can hear more about NC State's GutenDay on the WPCampus Podcast! We were vaguely aware of Gutenberg all through 2017. Our team in...

From our Podcast

Conference Hangover

Folks, it’s been two weeks since WPCampus 2019 and we’re still so tired. So tired that Jen and Brian forgot to introduce themselves and forgot to say any of the stuff we’re supposed to say at the end of the episode. WPCampus 2019 was fun, informative, and exhausting. Some day we’ll recover. In this episode […]

Summertime News Roundup

In higher ed, summer means fewer students, less traffic, and shorter lines at the best lunch places near campus. For those of us who use WordPress in higher ed, it also means major WordPress news and the final push to prepare for the in-person WPCampus event! In this episode, WPCampus members Jen McFarland and Brian […]

The Schedule for WPCampus 2019

Coming soon to lovely Portland, OR is the 2019 WPCampus conference! The schedule of sessions is now available and in this episode, WPCampus members Brian DeConinck and Jen McFarland are joined by WPCampus 2019 Program co-chair Eric Sembrat. Eric reviews some of the content planned for this year’s event, and some ways in which folks […]

After the Gutenberg Audit

The WPCampus Podcast is back! If you’re in higher ed, you have to care about accessibility. There’s no getting around it: the digital experiences we provide to our communities have to be accessible to everyone. So when WordPress 5.0 made the “Gutenberg” block editor the default editing experience — and when many in the WordPress […]

GDPR, Privacy, and WordPress

You may have noticed that data privacy has been in the news lately, for a lot of different reasons. One of those reasons: the European Union will be implementing the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, this spring. GDPR has global implications, which means there are changes coming to WordPress core, and also to how […]

Guten Ready for Gutenberg

When WordPress 5.0 is released later this year, the “classic” Visual editor that we’ve known for over a decade will be replaced by a new editing experience, called Gutenberg. The new editor will mean lots of changes for how we think about and interact with WordPress—as content creators and as developers. This episode features WPCampus […]

Your Campus Web Ecosystem

On many campuses, WordPress isn’t the only CMS in use. And if we start thinking about learning management systems, campus portals, and the many other ways our schools use the web, WordPress is clearly just one part of a complex web landscape. This episode features WPCampus community members Brian DeConinck and Eric Sembrat. Eric is a developer and […]

Contributing to WordPress Core

WordPress is popular in higher ed for a lot of reasons, and being open source has to be near the top of the list. And that means that you — yes, you! — can contribute bug fixes and new features to the project. But actually showing up and contributing can be intimidating. How do you […]

Using the WordPress REST API

The REST API became part of WordPress Core in version 4.7. For developers like me, this is one of the most exciting changes to WordPress in years. But now that it’s in core, what do you use it for? How does it fit into what you’re already doing? And what does it allow you to […]

Centralized News at Vanderbilt University

Universities generate a lot of news: awards, research highlights, student profiles, athletic victories, and more. At its heart, WordPress is still a great blogging platform, which makes it the ideal place to publish and promote your campus news. But the decentralized reality of higher ed can make it more complicated than you expect. Today, we’ll […]

Going WordPress

The campus web ecosystem is often very messy. You may have hundreds or even thousands of distinct web properties, and each one has its own history, its own personalities, and its own reasons why it’s special and has to be different. This episode features WPCampus community members Brian DeConinck and Jen McFarland, and one of […]

Web Governance

When we talk about WordPress in higher ed, we often talk about technology—themes and plugins, server configurations, etc. But at some point, the developers have to let go and the content creators take over. In higher ed, that brings with it a whole new set of challenges. This episode features WPCampus members Brian DeConinck, Jen […]

WPCampus 2016 Conference Retrospective

In August 2015, Rachel Cherry tweeted about an idea she had: a WordCamp for people who use WordPress in higher education. Eleven and a half months later, over 150 people representing 60 different higher ed institutions gathered in Sarasota, Florida for the inaugural WPCampus conference. With WPCampus 2016 wrapped up and WPCampus 2017 on everyone’s […]

2016 WPCampus Survey

In May 2016, WPCampus organized a groundbreaking survey of educational institutions asking how they’re using WordPress. We’ll be discussing the results with Shane Pearlman of Modern Tribe, who took the lead organizing and conducting that survey. This episode features WPCampus members Brian DeConinck, Jen McFarland, and Shane Pearlman. Episode Audio