The WPCampus Podcast

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 […]

Automated testing. We all know we should be doing it but are you? For many of us it seems like a daunting addition to our routines and something we can always get to later. But somehow later never comes around. In this episode, host Jen McFarland chats with Steve Persch, Lead Developer Advocate at Pantheon. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Beyond the conferences, online events, and phenomenal swag, WPCampus is a community — one made up of a varied and diverse set of people. With a focus on building that community, the WPCampus Diversity & Inclusion Interest Group recently completed work on a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement. This statement reflects a goal of creating […]

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 […]

The last couple of episodes of the podcast focused on big changes to WordPress—Gutenberg and GDPR privacy tools. It’s easy to get caught up in the energy and the drama of changes like that, but they’re not really why people use WordPress in higher ed. So why do we use WordPress? What makes it such […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Like a lot of web tools, WordPress is built and sold as “easy to use.” That’s one of the ways I pitch WordPress to users on my campus—it’s so easy to put content online. But even if it’s technically easy to publish, the actual work of planning and executing a content strategy that aligns with […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Whenever you talk about WordPress, someone brings up WordPress security. Your boss is going to bring it up, your clients are going to bring it up, and there’s a decent chance you’ve had at least one night’s sleep ruined thinking about it. It’s one of those things that makes you feel paranoid: Am I doing […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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

From simple contact forms to complex online applications, higher ed hosts a variety of online forms. For this episode, we’ll discuss what’s important and needed for WordPress forms in the world of higher ed, including accessibility and privacy concerns. For this episode, we are joined by WPCampus members Rachel Cherry and Curtiss Grymala and WordPress […]

WordPress has a nifty little plugin that allows it to take on the role of community building and social networking and that tool is called BuddyPress. Today in the podcast we’ll talk to a developer, contributor, and user of BuddyPress and discuss the power and pitfalls that come with BuddyPress for HigherEd. For this episode, […]

How does WordPress work as a Learning Management System? What are the challenges in setting it up for this purpose? What are the best practices, great plugins, and most practical ways to use WordPress as an LMS? We (try) to answer those questions this week. For this episode, we are joined by WPCampus members @darichardson, @kimshivler, […]

WordPress has a relationship with Security that can often be described as “contentious, ” but it doesn’t have to be that way! In today’s podcast, we’ll discuss how Security and WordPress can work together to bring you a secure website and safe campus network as well as how to navigate these discussions with your IT […]

A WordPress multisite network allows you to run and manage multiple WordPress sites from a single WordPress installation. In today’s podcast, we’re going to dive in and discuss the benefits, drawbacks, use cases, and how you can take advantage of unifying multiple websites under one WordPress install. We’ll also touch on multisite security and performance. […]

Web accessibility refers to 
the inclusive practice of 
removing barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites by people with disabilities. When your website is accessible, visually-impaired users can visit your website using a screen reader and those who can’t use the mouse can navigate your site using a keyboard or other input device. […]

WPCampus is a community and conference for web professionals, educators and people dedicated to the confluence of WordPress in higher education. Today will be a very general overview of WPCampus and talking about the conference but we want this to be the beginning of a weekly show where we can discuss topics relevant to our […]