Award: Silver

Institution: Cornell University

Title of Entry: Cornell CALS Web Ecosystem Rethink Project

About this Entry: Our call to action for this comprehensive overhaul of our college web ecosystem was simple – design an online movement that others want to join.

The Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences maintains a web ecosystem of our flagship and nearly 60 unit, school and department websites that from 2012-2019 existed in a difficult-to-maintain multi-theme Drupal 7 environment that siloed content and did not align with our new visual identity and messaging strategy. Our Web Ecosystem Rethink Project dared to re-envision what a college web ecosystem could be and rebuilt the system in Drupal 8 under new guiding principles. Those principles included the following:

Articulate clear values and propositions that are identifiable and relatable for those not yet engaged with us; Craft tangible calls-to-action around which diverse individuals and institutions can rally to advance these values; Help prospective students picture themselves in our world, especially Gen Z applicants who desire a college experience that aligns to their passions and interests; Express our creative vision through innovative and responsive design meeting WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards; Increase our ability to aggregate content in user-centric ways to break down info silos and drive automated updates across the system, reducing manual cross-posting; Adopt a modular design to condense themes into a single codebase allowing for a more flexible layout and easier back-end maintenance and development.

We launched our flagship site in November 2019 and phase two includes migrating remaining subsites between early 2020 and fall 2022.