Whether you’re looking to build a digital exhibit, host a research project, or share a professional portfolio or course site, the following WordPress-based platforms offer a range of user-friendly options for professors and researchers at UBC. Rollover the “Tool/Platform” heading to read more detailed information, and click on it to connect to the service directly.
| Tool/Platform | Description | Use | Challenges |
|---|---|---|---|
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Blogs is a free, user-friendly blogging and website platform powered by WordPress, which is a content management system (CMS) that enables you to create and manage websites easily, even without coding knowledge. Available to all UBC students, faculty, and staff, it helps anyone to quickly create a blog, course site, or personal webpage without needing technical expertise.
Sites can be used by faculty to set up class projects where students can contribute posts, document ongoing research, or reflections. You can customize your site using a variety of themes and plugins, and your content can be shared either privately with collaborators or publicly with a broader audience. Because it’s hosted and supported by UBC, it’s also a secure and reliable option for long-term use. |
WordPress-based platform for student or course blogging | Classroom blogs, peer reflection, course engagement | Limited customization and design flexibility |
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ADC is a platform specifically developed for the Faculty of Arts at UBC to support digital research and creative projects. It’s designed for showcasing curated collections of media-rich content such as images, audio, video, and scanned documents.
Faculty might use ADC to build publicly accessible galleries for research outputs, archive oral history interviews, or display student-curated digital exhibits for coursework. It’s particularly well-suited for projects that involve tagging, metadata, and visual organization of digitized materials. Since ADC is maintained by UBC Arts ISIT, it’s fully supported and backed by UBC’s data policies, making it a reliable and secure choice for long-term digital preservation and public scholarship.
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WordPress platform focused on displaying digitized content | Digital exhibits, photo archives, curated research collections | Requires thoughtful layout and metadata tagging |
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Webshare is a UBC IT shared hosting service for faculty, staff, and departments to host websites or files on UBC-managed servers.
UBC IT maintains the hosting environment and applies security updates, while website owners manage content, design, testing, custom code issues, and security reporting.
Webshare suits faculty and researchers needing templated yet customizable websites who are comfortable with HTML, CSS, or CMS platforms like Drupal or WordPress. It’s recommended for technically experienced users or teams with web developers. For simpler solutions, consider UBC Blogs or Arts Digital Collections. |
Lightweight WordPress hosting for personal teaching/research pages | Project overviews, personal websites, resource sharing | Limited customization and plugin options |
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Drupal is a free content management system ideal for complex or data-rich projects, offering a modular system with more granular control over how content is structured, accessed, and displayed. While Drupal does have a steeper learning curve, it excels at handling highly customized content types, relationships, and workflows. It works well for projects requiring long-term scalability or institutional collaboration.
In addition, UBC IT Web Services team specializes in developing and maintaining Drupal websites for the university. They offer end-to-end services, from designing your site’s architecture to helping you organize content effectively. This makes Drupal a strong option for researchers who need a long-term, institutionally supported solution for presenting their work online. |
UBC-supported CMS for complex websites, powered by Drupal | Departmental websites, multi-user research collaborations | Somewhat steep learning curve; requires UBC IT support for setup |