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University of Chicago Consortium on School Research

Making Essential Education Research Available To All Of Us

Summer 2019
Chicago | Drupal

For 29 years, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) has informed solutions to the greatest challenges facing urban schools. The Consortium has built an extensive body of knowledge that is widely used in Chicago and around the country.

The Consortium needed to create a web experience that would provide quick and easy access to the critical body of knowledge it has amassed. Importantly, the Consortium wanted to make their research available and accessible, not just to their academic peers, but to teachers and principals who will put it to use in classrooms, and parents and community members who can put it to use in their homes and communities.

The Consortium needed a web partner who wouldn’t just build them a website, but who would uniquely craft powerful web tool that would serve the needs of its diverse audiences. GeekPAK was the perfect match. Not only does GeekPAK have a broad range of education experience and clients, but GeekPAK never uses a cookie cutter template driven approach. We build specific solutions for each client we work with.

Beyond content and audience requirements, the Consortium also had specific technical requirements that had to be met. Because we create custom solutions to meet our clients individual needs, and in spite of GeekPAK having it’s own CMS, we accommodated the University of Chicago’s technical requirements and developed the new Consortium site in Drupal 8.

Our Approach
GeekPAK worked with the Consortium do identify each of it’s many audiences. We engaged in research and strategy development to identify the unique needs of each audience as well as areas they had in common. We developed tools and interfaces that would satisfy the needs of all audiences, researcher and parent alike.

GeekPAK worked with the Consortium to:
1. organize it’s collection of research into easy to understand subject areas that use language all audiences could understand.

2. present key research and landmark publications in each subject area highlighting the core of the Consortium’s findings.

3. develop a page flow that progresses from essentialized critical findings, to essential reports, to full detail listings of all subject related publications searchable by keyword and tag.

4. present the most recent Consortium research as well as previews of upcoming studies to help visitors keep up to date on their latest work.

5. present key research selected for each of the Consortium’s audiences

6. organize each subject area into relevant subtopics allowing visitors to quickly narrow 29 years of research down to a few focused publications addressing a specific subject.


Nitty Gritty
+ Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 data import and conversion

+ Enhanced full content search of the entire Consortium research collection

+ Implementation of key Drupal 8 features including media bundles and powerful taxonomies

+ Simplified data entry through reuse of common features and custom forms and content types

CMS Content Management Systems provide a structured, database driven suite of tools for managing your website. At GeekPAK our CMS can help you manage your website and your business.
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