Q&A: Inside Princeton’s 1,000-Site Web Ecosystem

To start, can you describe how Princeton’s web ecosystem is structured today?

Princeton operates a more centralized web model than many of its peers. The core of the ecosystem is a centrally managed Drupal multisite platform run by the central Office of Information Technology. The university has been using Drupal multisite since the early 2010s, first launching on Drupal 7 and then fully rethinking and rebuilding the platform during its major upgrade.

Today, our platform supports more than 1,000 websites across the university. While it doesn’t include every site at Princeton, it powers a large majority of departmental, center, and program sites.

What’s driven such broad adoption of the platform?

The platform was intentionally designed to be the obvious choice. It’s centrally funded, hosted, secured, and supported, with no annual cost to departments. For campus units weighing whether to build their own site or use a shared system, the value proposition is clear.

Just as importantly, the platform is positioned internally as Princeton’s website builder, not as a technical tool that requires knowledge of Drupal. Departments also know they’re not on their own: the central web team is stable, accessible, and invested in long-term support.

Who builds and maintains websites on the ecosystem platform?

The user base spans a wide range of roles and skill levels across Princeton. Some sites are built by administrative staff at small centers, where one person may handle everything from scheduling meetings to managing the website. Others are built by marketing specialists or experienced web professionals who prefer not to maintain another custom implementation.

The platform is designed so that users don’t need technical expertise to succeed. While some users benefit from training sessions or one-on-one support to get started, most are able to build and manage their sites independently once they understand the basics.

What happens when a department needs more support than a DIY approach allows?

Departments can engage the central web team for a full-service website build. In those cases, the team provides a designer and content strategist, and a developer when custom functionality is required. Importantly, these projects still use the same underlying platform.

Rather than paying for a separate system, departments are paying for expertise, process, and guidance. Custom work may include additional styling, scripts, or new content types, but everything remains within a shared, maintainable ecosystem.

How do you balance flexibility with governance at that scale?

That balance is achieved through carefully designed guardrails. The platform offers a wide range of configuration options that allow sites to feel customized without introducing unnecessary complexity.

This approach makes it possible for the central team to support and upgrade a large number of sites efficiently, while avoiding the fragmentation that can make long-term maintenance unsustainable.

What kinds of shared services are built into the platform?

The platform includes several integrations that support common university needs. Sites can display news content, either created locally or pulled in via RSS feeds. Events can be surfaced from Drupal or integrated from campus groups, depending on how they’re managed.

The ecosystem also supports course listings pulled from registrar data. While the central team doesn’t own the source data itself, it is responsible for building and maintaining the integrations that make that data usable across sites.

Are there units or departments at Princeton that don’t use the platform?

Some high-profile sites, such as Admissions, are not currently on the platform — not because of technical limitations, but because of a desire for greater control or ownership.

In the past, concerns were often driven by design. Some groups felt the shared platform didn’t offer enough visual distinction. Over time, that’s changed. The central team has strengthened its theming capabilities, making it possible to layer custom visual identities on top of shared UX patterns.

How does content strategy and UX fit into this ecosystem?

Content strategy is a core part of the service offering. The team includes a content strategist who helps departments clarify audiences, prioritize content, and organize information effectively. Designers and project managers also contribute UX guidance, even though there isn’t a separate, dedicated UX team.

While the team doesn’t produce content directly, it plays an important advisory role. In practice, content quality is often the limiting factor in a project — strong structure and design can only go so far if the underlying content isn’t ready.

Content ownership remains with individual departments. The central web team’s role is to provide the platform, guidance, and support — not to control messaging or day-to-day content decisions.

Where does WordPress fit into Princeton’s ecosystem?

WordPress exists primarily as a secondary platform, used for student groups and small, short-lived projects. While it’s centrally hosted, it hasn’t received the same level of strategic investment and isn’t used for major institutional sites.

What’s on the roadmap for the next phase of the platform?

Two areas are top of mind. The first is improving the editor experience. While Drupal’s layout builder is powerful, it can be difficult for non-technical users, and the team is closely watching developments like Drupal’s new Canvas tools.

The second area is AI. The team is exploring how AI might support content creation and formatting, not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a way to help users get started more easily and work more efficiently.

How has the campus responded to AI so far?

Reactions vary widely. Some users are eager to experiment, while others are cautious or skeptical. To help demystify the technology, the team has begun offering practical workshops focused on realistic, low-risk use cases that show how AI can support everyday website work.

Looking back, is there anything you would approach differently?

With hindsight, the team would have invested earlier in formal design standards and a more structured theme layer. At the time the platform was built, it wasn’t yet clear how important those elements would become at scale.