CALS offers no-cost WordPress web hosting services to CALS Administration, Departments, research groups, grant-funded projects, and other groups within the College, hosted on DoIT/WiscWeb AWS infrastructure.
Service Overview
All of the websites on our CALS WordPress multisite platform are hosted in the cloud on DoIT/WiscWeb Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. The underlying infrastructure, including servers, databases, caching systems, etc.) is managed with the help of the DoIT WiscWeb team. We take care of the security and hosting infrastructure so you don’t have to.
Web Hosting Availability
CALS offers no-cost WordPress web hosting services to all faculty and staff affiliated with the college. This includes CALS Administration, Departments, research groups, grant-funded projects, and other groups within the College.
WordPress
The CALS Web hosting service utilizes an open source content management tool called WordPress. WordPress allows users to build out websites with no prior knowledge or expertise in HTML, CSS or other web development languages.
Themes (Website Design Choices)
We provide several choices of UW branded WordPress themes. The theme controls the look and feel of the site, including color, fonts, and page layout options. Our latest CALS version 4 theme uses the Gutenberg Block Editor and numerous other features designed for cross browser/device responsiveness, and digital accessibility. For a sample of this theme and block-element layout options, please visit featured theme page. The CALS theme can also provide some branding flexibility for special research and grant funded project with cross institutional partners where UW branding needs to be minimized.
All websites at UW-Madison must meet the minimum web requirements established by the University and the Office of Strategic Communication that include UW branding, GDPR compliance, and for compliance with digital accessibility policy. The CALS and UW Theme take care of all of this for you so you can focus on creating and maintaining your content and communicating with your website visitors.
WordPress Editor
The latest CALS version 4 theme uses the Gutenberg Block Editor as apposed to the classic editor found in the CALS 2015 and UW Theme. The classic editor was limited to basic text formatting within a single text area, and is being phased out by WordPress in favor of the block editor. The Gutenberg Block Editor uses a block-based approach where each piece of content (text, image, accordion, carousel, video, columns, groups, etc.) is a separate block that can be easily moved, combined, and customized. New custom blocks or third-party blocks can also be added to the theme to create even more functionality for page content. The block editor provides a more visual, customizable and flexible editing experience.
Plugins
In addition to the functionality that comes with our themes, we also have the ability to install and activate vetted and secure plugins in order to allow users more flexibility when building their sites. The gravity forms plugin is an example where the plugin provides additional web form functionality to a website. The CALS Web Services team is happy to discuss potential functionality that may be achieved by the addition of a particular plugin. However, all plugin requests must undergo a review process to evaluate the performance, security and accessibility of the plugin, as well as the load impact it may have on the overall WordPress multisite platform. We are not able to allow users to download and install plugins themselves as it creates a security risk.
Maintenance and Updates
The CALS Web Services team monitors and implements WordPress plugin and theme upgrades, patches and fixes so you don’t have to. We also coordinate with the DoIT WiscWeb team to install and test WordPress Core updates as those are released.
Additional Web Services
The managed WordPress solution is ideal for many websites, though we realize there are organizations who might need some additional flexibility with a WordPress environment or would like a deeper dive into managing at the server level. To serve these customers, we may be able to offer additional capability depending on your interests and needs. Please contact us, and we may have a solution for you.
Next Steps
Please read our Planning Your Website document, and then email us at websupport@cals.wisc.edu to setup a meeting to discuss your needs.