Campus & community, Campus news

The path to financial sustainability? There’s a link for that

Administration and Finance's redesigned website doesn't just talk about putting the campus on a financially sustainable path. As the leading edge of the Open Berkeley project, it's an active part of the solution.

John Wilton

How to “place UC Berkeley on a financially sustainable path while improving our organizational performance”? Unfortunately, there isn’t an app for that.

There is, however, a website.

Wilton video

That would be the new and improved online home of Administration and Finance, headed by Vice Chancellor John Wilton, who also blogs on issues ranging from Cal Athletics to revenue generation, the subject of a campus symposium his office sponsored earlier this month.

The new site is “less about our organizational structure and more about what we are doing to put Berkeley on a path toward financial sustainability,” Wilton says.

But the redesign, he adds, is important on another front as well. “We had a vision for developing a web solution for the entire campus,” he explains. “Now we have the Open Berkeley project,” an open-source, Drupal-based content management system that can be adapted to the needs of departments across the campus.

Moira Perez, the office’s director of new initiatives and the functional lead on the Open Berkeley project, says departments are already queuing up for a crack at the system, a one-stop solution for units who’d like to make their sites more functional and dynamic — without the time and expense of starting from scratch. Early adopters taking part in pilot programs include departments in Administration and Finance and the Office of the Chancellor.

The plan, adds Perez, is to expand adoption more broadly across the campus over the coming year.

For more details about Open Berkeley, visit the project wiki. Campus staff interested in deploying Open Berkeley in their departments should contact IST Drupal.