OPEN SOURCE WEB DEVELOPMENT:

DEFINITION, PURPOSE, AND IMPLEMENTATION

Caitlin Corbett
LIS 5223: Information Technology Management
May 6th, 2015

Caitlin Corbett
LIS 5223 - Research Paper
5/6/2015

Open Source Web Development:

Definition, Purpose, and Implementation
______________________________________________________________________________
I.

Executive Summary

Technological innovations have informed data delivery, access, and methods of interaction. And
with such evolution comes heightened demand. Even though we as a large public university
library recognize that this is inevitable, the reality is particularly challenging in the face of rolling
cuts to our budget and other financial impacts. Because our fiscal allowance will be reduced for
the third consecutive year, it is necessary to explore and invest in measures that will both serve
the goals and needs of our organization and patrons, and conserve funds. And as a new, mobileresponsive library website has been ordered as part of this practical renewal, the Information
Technology department of University Libraries therefore makes the recommendation for
investment in open source software, particularly for our web platform. We specifically
recommend the content management system Drupal for our web development needs. This will
constitute cost savings, and we will derive immediate benefit from the widely available
documentation on developer communities. The source code is freely available and licensed, and
we are fortunate enough to have a team member who has considerable prior experience with
Drupal development. Our teams collective expertise puts it at an advantage for productive and
efficient use of the software, which will also be supported by freshly upgraded server
infrastructure.

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II.

Introduction & Description

Our team proposes that we explore adoption and integration of open source software. While
there are many areas served by open source solutions, our organization's most immediate and
relevant need is in web development. In earlier discussions, we have presented the necessity for a
responsively designed website. For support of this library initiative, we can and should harness
the collaborative development and associated resources of the open source community. We have
specifically been considering the use of Drupal for our web infrastructure. Drupal is a content
management system, built on an open source platform. It is written in PHP, and comes with
several core features which our organization will heavily utilize. The possibilities for further,
unique development items are considerably increased due to the open source framework. This is
because the open source community, especially the one for Drupal, features a wide-reaching
group of collaborators, who offer advice and even deployable bundles of code called "modules";
these can enable a desired action or capability without specialized development or knowledge on
the part of in-house web developers. Modules of all kinds are constantly being developed and
actively maintained; their creators are responsible for releasing updates and patches to the code
packages when necessary.

Open source software is of course free to use and freely modified and distributed. In this way it
exists in contrast to proprietary software that our organization has used for the past decade,
which has effectively disabled us from making any significant changes to source code or
therefore creating components that most specifically serve our needs. As you know, we
historically have employed a combined approach which entailed the heavy utilization of the
vendor's tech support, our organizational developers, and contracting of third party entities.

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While this mostly achieved our desired end goals, it was not always the most efficient or
economical means of operation due to ongoing expenditures.

Installation of open source software is relatively quick, given the availability of file packages. In
fact, installation could be immediate once a decision is reached and authorized. The organization
recently acquired additional servers in anticipation of the web infrastructure overhaul, so this
portion is in place. Once installation occurs, the development and administration can begin. And
as mentioned, our developers will have access to collaborative resources and informative forums
for additional helpful code bundles and assistance from other users across the world.

III.

Purpose

The pursuit of open source software satisfies three core practical objectives: to better serve all of
our patrons (students, faculty, researchers, and the greater community), to increase our visibility
and reputation through collaboration in resource development, and to improve our budgetary
contingency. Because all of these things have been stated as primary concerns by Library
Administration, it is incumbent upon us to explore various means of meeting goals and doing so
with the greatest benefit to the organization.

Our organization has unfortunately struggled to meet the bare minimum of key technological
expectations set by our patrons - not least of all the university students. Our website has gone
untouched design-wise for over a decade, and has consequently failed to reflect acknowledgment
of considerable trends such as mobile device use. This has left many users frustrated by the
clumsiness and difficulty in site navigation on their smartphones and tablets, and this in turn

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impacts their access to our resources. In addition, the website's content has never been structured
in an anchoring way. Drupal, as a robust content management system, facilitates structured
content that is linked effectively by coherent and consistent metadata. Georgy Cohen of
MeetContent writes that we simply "dont have the time or resources to build separate mobile
sites and mobile apps, nor to re-create instances of content to accommodate different pages or
sites", and advocates working with it "in layers...ready to be reused in any context it may
encounter" (Cohen 2012). Our team is familiar with database structure and maintenance, upon
which Drupal will heavily rely. And these efforts together will build a secure foundation for
greatly improved presentation of web content. Open source software (and related development
efforts) will enable us to deliver content and access to our web-based resources to our users.
Modules already existing and available for further customization as per our needs will expand
our present offerings, and easily permit future development of capabilities and features that
patrons may come to expect based on changing technology trends. One very promising module
"integrates the OPAC with the website and enables patron tagging, ratings, and reviews in the
catalog" (Sheehan 2009, 10). Drupal has also been shown as a viable platform for libraries'
digital collections (Coombs 2009, 31).

Similarly, our team's participation in the worldwide open source community will yield the
organization greater visibility. We would not merely be utilizing others' modules and code
bundles; we would also be making freely available our own customizations, which other
organizations could then adopt and edit as necessary. This continues the free exchange paradigm
of the open source movement. And our work, created with transparency, would place us in the

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middle of active collaboration in the web development world. This is something that our current
administration is keen to see happen, and it would be a simple way of ensuring it.

Finally, the budgetary concerns play a substantial role in our investigations of workable
solutions. As noted, open source software, such as Drupal, is free to use and modify. The past
decade has shown only minimum returns for our financial investments in proprietary software.
Our initial research has shown that the benefits of utilizing Drupal (and other open source
software) would prove fiscally sound both in the short term and quite likely the long term, owing
in no small part to the combined capabilities of our team.

IV.

Alternatives & Issues

The first and perhaps most obvious alternative is to seek a pre-packaged, proprietary solution for
our redesigned web infrastructure. In general, this could increase the speed of implementation,
but the limitations of the software are something to consider. And we certainly would need to
spend time gathering knowledge of as many features and issues of the package as possible prior
to purchase. Such research could likely result in a natural extension of preparation time predeployment. Additionally, continued dependence upon a vendor bears implications ranging from
increasing costs to being locked into their software's capabilities and limitations. If we do decide
to accept this alternative, our team will need to develop and distribute an RFP as soon as
possible.

A second alternative is to contract out for what we think we need. This would involve creation of
a master list of all of the necessary components and features that our organization requires.

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Although we can discuss some of the future additions and innovations, it would be difficult to
articulate such things for a contractor designing our package. The upfront costs would be only
initial, and we would need to find budgetary allowance for further development on their end once
a new feature is desired and identified. The uncertainty of cost is daunting, particularly in such
stringent financial times. There would be little to no flexibility once we committed to a contract.

A third option is to direct the necessary development in house. This approach would require
upfront financial investment in all required components, as well as costs for staff hours spent on
training. The installation time would also certainly be prolonged. We may outline what we want
feature-wise, but initial deployment must be followed quickly by rounds of beta testing and
usability studies. Findings gathered will need to be implemented and depending upon what they
entail, this could mean additional component purchasing and training expenditures. While such a
method may benefit firms that are seeking to build highly innovative items and which provide a
competitive advantage in that uniqueness, this is not altogether applicable to our organization.

Even though our team proposes adoption of Drupal open source software, we would be remiss if
we did not mention some of the main related issues that have arisen for other similar
organizations in the past. Danielle Becker of Hunter College Libraries cites some key pain points
amid her work with the CMS for their organizational website redesign. She speaks of the
difficulty of learning the system due to a non-intuitive terminology and overall component
structure (Becker 2010, 20). In addition, the code bundles yielding functionality of additional
features mentioned earlier, "modules", are not as easily engaged (Becker 2010, 20). And lastly,

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HTML and CSS knowledge is mandatory, given the inherent need for edits and styling (Becker
2010, 20).

Although all of these concerns are valid, it should be noted that our most recent hire is very
familiar with Drupal, given prior work done in that development atmosphere. This employee can
be utilized as a trainer and principal resource, as well as the likely project lead. We do not
anticipate extensive problems with adoption of Drupal, given the collective knowledge of our
developers, and especially due to the extensive experience of the aforementioned team member.
While we are not declaring that we expect no issues at all, we do expect any problems or
stumbling blocks to be minimized by the collective expertise (particularly in HTML, CSS, and
PHP) and our recent investment in improved server infrastructure.

V.

Timeframe

Open source software, by nature, is readily available. In this case, the freely licensed files are
hosted on the Drupal main site, and capable of download as soon as we have the authorization to
do so. Our overall implementation time would be comparatively accelerated with adoption of this
method. As previously mentioned, our probable project lead has extensive experience with
Drupal and open source programming, and we are now equipped with new server infrastructure.
These factors help to ensure an efficient installation of the development environment. Once
implemented, our web team members can begin content migration. A realistic outlook for the
first phase of a full website redesign using Drupal is between eight to ten months. This includes
installation, set-up, content gathering, content migration, theme development (mainly CSS
generation), and an initial period of beta testing and response.

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Drupal, like other open source software, is currently utilized by many organizations around the
world. And due to this, the documentation and developer resources are widely and immediately
available in areas such as coding forums, developer showcases, and on third-party training
websites. There are obviously considerations and challenges at present; we can expect definitions
of "best practices" and user expectations to evolve over time.

Open source development at University Libraries is likely to grow in importance as different

departments see flourishing opportunities for collaboration and creative work to be done on
behalf of the organization and the broader university. It is critical, however, that we move with
efficiency to lay the foundations for addressing the concerns and fulfilling the objectives of the
University Libraries.

VI.

Conclusion

In summation, our team believes that the adoption of open source software and consequent
development efforts could be a productive change for the organization. It could increase our
functional offerings for patrons local and remote, and also help to keep us relevant. We must
demonstrate that we are open to taking on new challenges and utilizing new technology to better
serve our patrons. Open source adoption can aid us in this endeavor, not least of all by tapping
into the collective knowledge base of the developer community. Additionally, our research has
indeed shown a history of positive implementation in library contexts. In her article Danielle
Becker lauds the richness of the open source community and how it renders Drupal so powerful,
and praises the capabilities for content structuring and interfacing (Becker 2010, 21). Overall,

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Becker is pleased with her experience with Drupal, and she looks forward to the upcoming
features planned for eventual implementation. Gabrielle Wiersma relates the inclusive aspect of
Drupal, in that users of varying skill levels can contribute new content and similarly maintain
existing content (Wiersma 2009, 169).

Whether we do in fact pursue open source solutions or one of the alternatives, we have clear
objectives set by Library and University Administration. And our energy must be focused upon
fulfilling them as efficiently as possible.
______________________________________________________________________________
References
Becker, Danielle A. "Adventures in Drupal: Designing a Library Website Using a CMS." Online
34, no. 5 (2010): 19-21.
Cohen, Georgy. "Structured Content: An Overview." Meet Content. March 27, 2012.
http://meetcontent.com/blog/structured-content-an-overview/
Coombs, Karen. Drupal Done Right. Library Journal 134, no. 19 (2009): 30-32.
Sheehan, Kate. Creating open Source Conversation. Information Today 29, no. 2 (2009): 8-11.
Wiersma, Gabrielle. Building Online Content and Community with Drupal.
Collaborative Librarianship 1, no. 4 (2009): 169-171.

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