My name is Eric Lakich. I am a student at Purdue University. I am currently
working on a class project that requires a group member and I to compile case
studies about certain types of Drupal websites. The first part of the project
is to compile a short survey that we think would best be answered by someone
familiar with the Drupal community. We found your site from Drupal.org. We
feel that your site is organized well and easy to follow. We would greatly
appreciate the opportunity to have you post a reply to our questions and offer
any feedback you may have about either your site or Drupal in general.
We are trying to answer the following questions about Drupal.
1) What can a Drupal site do for an organization?
2) What is personal profile information used for if I join a Drupal site?
3) What type of credibility issues are associated with Drupal?
4) Can the content of some Drupal sites ruin the credibility of Drupal as a whole?
5) Can Drupal be implemented into currently running websites?
6) How difficult is the change-over?
Questions directed toward our group topic:
7) What are the advantages of using Drupal over other web patforms?
8) What signifies a Drupal site as a resource or a non-profit site?
9) What other search platforms cater to Drupal sites besides drupal.org?
10) What methods are used to establish credibility among resource or non-profit sites?
11) What adavantages can Drupal offer non-profit organizations?
12) How can a non-profit organization use Drupal to promote their cause?
Response to Survey
1) What can a Drupal site do for an organization?
Hm. I assume we're talking about an org. that has no CMS already. If that's the case, then Drupal can perform all of the operations of a CMS in a quick, easy, and very inexpensive manner. It would take a long time to go into CMS in general, but suffice it to say that they allow an org. a pretty comprehensive communications solution.
2) What is personal profile information used for if I join a Drupal site?
I'm not sure I know the answer. I guess it depends on the Drupal site in question. I suppose an unscrupulous admin could sell the info to companies. You'd better check the user agreements on the site and consider if you can trust the admin.
3) What type of credibility issues are associated with Drupal?
It's open source and free, so that makes some ignoramuses think it's not secure. It has a very good reputation within the open source community, and I think that says a lot about its quality.
4) Can the content of some Drupal sites ruin the credibility of Drupal as a whole?
Not really. The only thing that could really do that would be a bunch of sites going down because of nasty security holes or bug reports.
5) Can Drupal be implemented into currently running websites?
Reverse the question and the answer is Yes.
6) How difficult is the change-over?
Again, this depends on many factors. If the existing website is mostly database driven, a good SQL programmer could have it done in a few hours. If it's static HTML pages, that might take considerably more time.
7) What are the advantages of using Drupal over other web patforms?
The key advantage would be good documentation (some of which has been provided by our own cel4145) and a friendly support community. It's also free and seems to be moving in a good direction.
8) What signifies a Drupal site as a resource or a non-profit site?
I don't understand this question.
9) What other search platforms cater to Drupal sites besides drupal.org?
I don't know. These pages do seem to rank very high in Google searches, though.
10) What methods are used to establish credibility among resource or non-profit sites?
First, provide good material. Second, make sure the authors aren't hiding behind silly pseudonyms. Third, try to mention other sources and do everything you can to establish a presence in that community. It definitely doesn't hurt to get regularly mentioned on other prominent sites.
11) What adavantages can Drupal offer non-profit organizations?
The org. could use Drupal as an online headquarters. That's a pretty big adavantage.
12) How can a non-profit organization use Drupal to promote their cause?
The org. could use Drupal to publish information, interact with members and the public, setup news bulletins and mailings...The possibilities are really endless.