TYPO3 relaunch for the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development

HNEE - a pioneer in sustainable development - decided to comprehensively relaunch its university website in 2023. The switch from the proprietary Cabacos CMS to the open source CMS TYPO3 was not only a technological quantum leap, but also the starting point for the development of the "FGTCLB Academic Extensions". The ambitious project combined modern web technology with university-specific requirements - and set new standards in digital university communication.

• CMS migration: Switching from an outdated system to TYPO3 with a focus on future-proofing and expandability
• Rapid project launch: First MVP version implemented in just 4 months - just in time for the university information day on 3 June 2023
• User numbers increase by 24.45 %, interaction +45.86 %: In a year-on-year comparison from January to April 2024 / 2025, HNEE recorded an increase of 24.45%. At the same time, the average interaction time with the website rose from 2 minutes 11 seconds to 3 minutes 14 seconds - this corresponds to an increase of 45.86% compared to the previous year.

The biggest challenge was the extremely short development time. Within just four months, a functioning MVP version of the website had to be created that included all the information on the degree programmes for the university information day. At the same time, coordination took place with other universities that were involved in the Academic Programmes Extension to be developed as part of a demand pooling process.

Another challenge was the creation of so-called redirects. When a website is relaunched - i.e. comprehensively revised or redesigned - there are often changes to the page structure, the URLs or the domain. This is precisely where redirects play a central role. Without them, both users and search engines can experience considerable problems, as the content of the website is now in a completely different place than before.

As part of the HNEE relaunch, thousands of pages and their content from the previous content management system had to be analysed and assigned to the newly created page structure using redirects.

Within a few days, web-vision developed an AI tool that automatically crawled all pages and content from the old CMS and then stored them in a database. Another crawl then analysed the content of the new page and also saved it in the database. The AI tool then compared the extracted content based on its context and provided a list of old and new URLS as an Excel spreadsheet with a percentage similarity. The HNEE was thus able to verify the proposed URL pairs as a basis for creating redirects by means of random checks.

In total, over 13,000 URLs in German and English were analysed and compared with each other. The redirects created were then imported into the TYPO3 database so that relevant URLs receive automatic redirects.

A team at web-vision is currently working on the further development of the tool under the project title "AI Site Match" in order to publish it as a web service with an API in the future.

In the course of the relaunch, the FGTCLB agency network, under the direction of the TYPO3 agency web-vision and together with five universities, developed a modular TYPO3 extension framework for educational institutions and universities. The so-called FGTCLB Academic Extensions combine years of project experience and the specific requirements of universities into reusable, robust TYPO3 extensions, which are available free of charge as open source software.

The bundling of requirements was primarily aimed at harmonising the requirements of the various universities and educational institutions. Based on the information obtained from the project participants, the concept for the implementation of study programme information was first developed on the basis of a separate page type in TYPO3, as this achieved the greatest added value for all participants.

The collection of structured data such as duration of study, ECTS points, teaching language, topics, areas of interest and others was based on TYPO3 system categories, which were expanded to include the possibility of typing.

This structured data was then used as the starting point for the implementation of the filtering, which only allows positive filter combinations. This puts the positive user experience in the foreground and thus offers a unique selling point (USP) for the university.

However, this development was only the prelude to a whole series of further Academic Extensions that were to be used as part of the HNEE project.

The TYPO3 extension Academic Programs enables the HNEE to display structured study programme information within study programme landing pages. Study programmes can also be displayed in an A-Z tile display and filtered according to structured data if required. The special feature here is that the filters only provide "positive results", i.e. never empty lists - for an optimised user experience.

This TYPO3 extension adds a personal database to the HNEE website in TYPO3, with requirements that are usually used for colleges, universities or public institutions.

The profile data records were automatically created and linked in conjunction with the LDAP extension on the basis of FE user data records. The data was then enriched either in self-service via the integrated front-end edition by the HNEE employees themselves or centralised via the HNEE web editorial team.

The Academic Person Extension also serves as the basis for the personal directory or for linking contact persons for news, press releases or research projects. The additional extension "Contact for Pages" enables seamless linking with any page type in the TYPO3 system.

The TYPO3 extension for the presentation of research projects enables Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences to display an appealing overview of current or completed research projects with specifically structured data and typified system categories.

The project overview, created as a tile display with filtering, which only provides positive results based on system categories, can be filtered according to fields of expertise, type of funding and funding bodies.

On the detailed pages, structured data such as duration, project volume, areas of expertise, collaborations, funding bodies, freely customisable content is added. The "Contact for Pages" extension links dynamic project roles such as project managers, contact persons or participants with the person pages of the Academic Person Extension.

Academic Jobs allows you to independently enter job vacancies, internships and graduation projects for HNEE partner companies. In a simple approval process, Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences can then check the offers and publish them on the website.

The TYPO3 extension Academic Jobs with b-ite displays jobs from the b-Ite eRecruiting platform embedded in the TYPO3 website. Only the b-ite key was required for use, which could simply be read from the existing b-Ite job adverts in the browser.

The job adverts can be displayed as tiles, lists and tables with or without b-ite integration. Job adverts created with b-ite automatically link to the eRecruiting platform. Your own job offers are displayed within the HNEE website.

The HNEE website is now part of a growing network of digital university platforms based on the open source CMS TYPO3 - with scalable architecture and a growing community. A cooperation partner database is already being developed for further development, again as part of a demand pooling with other universities, with an interactive map and links to university projects.

The new digital foundation is already having a measurable impact: with an increase in website visitors from 85,115 in the first quarter of 2024 to 169,905 in the first quarter of 2025, HNEE's reach has grown by more than 25 % in just one year. Interaction with the new TYPO3 website even increased by more than 45%. This strong growth confirms the success of the strategic reorientation and forms the basis for further innovations in teaching, research and transfer at HNEE.