WordPress in Education

Use Cases

In the world of education, WordPress is used to power everything from simple news sites or blogs (specific to courses, departments, teachers, or campuses) to large networks representing entire University systems or school districts with hundreds or thousands of participating sites.

Here's just a sampling of educational institutions relying on WordPress as a significant part of their digital content management / web publishing initiatives:

Use Cases

In towns and cities, regions and countries, all over the world, WordPress powers the sites people visit multiple times every day for news, information and entertainment.

Accessibility

Although it should be a concern for all providers of web-based experiences, the world of education recognizes that accessibility is a core requirement for every site. Public universities in the United States, for example, are generally understood to be required to be compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define a set of standards broadly adopted by the international web community (including most US-based institutions).

While compliance with either Section 508 or WCAG 2.0 depends on a number of factors, including decisions made by site developers, theme developers, and content authors themselves, WordPress as a software project takes accessibility very seriously and works to ensure the platform itself supports accessibility, through a core Accessibility Team.

The education community within WordPress is also frequently involved, documenting their own approaches to creating and maintaining accessible experiences through WordCamp talks (many available on WordPress.tv), and providing plugins and tools which encourage and monitor accessibility compliance (see Integrations below).