Feb 25 2025 48 mins
In this episode of Impressive Hosting, Jesse Friedman is joined by Jim Groom (Reclaim Hosting) and Ronnie Burt (Automattic) to explore the unique hosting challenges and opportunities in higher education. They discuss the power of WordPress Multisite, the importance of giving students their own digital space with "A Domain of One’s Own," and the technical strategies for scaling university-wide hosting. From infrastructure surges during semester starts to the evolution of web literacy in academia, this episode investigates the space shared by higher education design and hosting, open-source, and the open web.
00:00 Intro
05:33 The Domain of One's Own
07:33 Why Higher Education and Institutions Choose Multisite
10:40 The Advantages and Challenges of Multisite
15:51 Interesting Uses of WordPress in Higher Ed
18:45 Editor Usage and Customization in Higher Education
24:06 The Joy of Using "Duct Tape and WordPress" in Higher Ed
30:33 Users and Multisites in Higher Ed
36:36 The Seasonality and Surges of Higher Ed Hosting
38:09 Managing Higher Ed Sites Remotely With Success
44:13 Post-Game Analysis
- bavaTuesdays.com (Jim Groom's blog)
- reclaimhosting.com (Reclaim Hosting's website)
- gravatar.com/ronnie (Ronnie Burt's Gravatar profile)
- gravatar.com (service for avatar management)
- FeedWordPress
- Gravity Forms
- WPCampus
- Sensei LMS
- Tom Woodward’s Blog