We have recently launched a WordPress server for hosting research project and conference websites.
It has become increasingly common for researchers to resort to creating these types of sites on external platforms such as WordPress, WiX, or Squarespace.
This presents a number of issues:
- Site-builder tools have copyright templates which means we are not allowed to make archive copies on web-archive.southampton.ac.uk (read more about the web archive here)
- If the site owner leaves, we can’t help support the site
- The DNS (web address) is often registered to an individual, not the university, so we can’t make alterations later
- If the website collects personal data then this could raise issues of data protection
The goal of this new service is to offer researchers an in-house solution which aims to give them the flexibility they would expect from an external platform, including the ability to install custom plugins and themes produced by designers.
Custom templates and plugins will be subject to a review by our team for security reasons.
We can also potentially create custom plugins to enhance your site. For example, we created a novel plugin to visualise and enable multi-path navigation through a complex set of topics (the illustration for this page).
If you would like to discuss creating a site on this platform, get in touch with our team via the contact information on this site.