We listen to platform operators and continuously improve OpenCulturas—benefiting you with every update.
Of course, you want control over who creates content and whether it's suitable for publication, whether images are properly licensed, or if duplicates have arisen through an import interface.
Control over basic settings
- Customizable design
- Operate as a closed editorial system or open for user-generated content—just a click away in the settings
- Customizable email templates
- Many taxonomies for your individual keywords (e.g. event types, location categories, focus topics, color coding sections, FAQ categories...)
- Cookie management
- Navigation service and regional public transit provider centrally configurable
- Template texts for terms of use, privacy policy, and accessibility statement (available on request from OpenCulturas Association)
Control over user permissions
The underlying system (Drupal) features a sophisticated permission system, allowing granular control—even for the "anonymous" role (non-logged-in users)—over available functions. OpenCulturas includes four additional preconfigured roles, each of which can be further tailored to your specific context.
Each user account can hold multiple roles, benefitting from additive permissions. Creating additional user accounts and assigning roles hierarchically is also managed through the permissions system.
Two-factor authentication is supported and required by default for administrators. We’ve also considered password security: by default, overly simple or easily guessable passwords cannot be set; administrators are subject to an even stricter policy.
Control over content
- Overviews of content and media, searchable, filterable, customizable
- Moderation workflows for pre- or post-moderation of content (details described in the magazine feature)
- Content versioning with restoration option
- Processes for abuse reporting and content adoption (with configurable email notifications)
- Scheduled publishing available
- Media can be reused, with centralized license information
- Media under Creative Commons licenses are automatically available to all users; others are not
- Optional commenting on content, with moderation process for comments as well
- The homepage can be individually assembled using custom content and prepared building blocks (e.g. upcoming events, highlights from profiles and locations, latest announcements)
- Even error pages ("page not found", "access denied") can be enriched editorially
Search engine optimization
- Expert-guided development—no makeshift solutions
- Configurable global meta tags (with smart placeholders), individually overridable for each content item as needed
- XML sitemap
- Matomo module can be activated (integration of other/additional analytics solutions possible)
- Landing pages automatically generated for every keyword
- Share links configurable for countless social media platforms
- Management of URL aliases (automatically created by default) and redirects
Great for your partners
- Calendar widget / branch calendar (a pre-filtered calendar embeddable on partner websites)
- Structured data prepared according to schema.org, simplifying the development of custom interfaces
- CSV export of event data
- Person, group, and location profiles can link a large number of social media profiles in a structured way
- Sponsor logos centrally manageable (with URL) and optionally embeddable by grantees
Great for meeting legal requirements
OpenCulturas has been reviewed and further developed from the ground up to address common compliance concerns—with empathy, as these requirements relate to human needs.
Accessibility
- Accessible in both frontend and backend
- Fully operable on mobile devices
- Heading hierarchy maintained (provided you follow it in your texts)
- Language tagging supported
- Alternative text for images
- Layout adapts to the font size set in the user’s device—great for people with limited vision
- Semantically correct HTML
Data protection compliant (GDPR compliant)
- Maps are cookie-free
- External videos only play after user consent
- Matomo can be run compliantly on your own infrastructure
- Fonts hosted on your own web server
- Two-factor authentication
- User accounts are private; usernames are not displayed; personal data in profiles are entirely optional
System security
- All software components, including third-party libraries, are subject to a regular update management process. Code is routinely checked and updated for insecure or deprecated methods. Our developments also follow the Security advisory policy of the Drupal security team.
- A component directory (Software Bill of Materials, SBOM) can be provided upon request.
Reusability through free and open-source software
- Built on the shoulders of giants: OpenCulturas is based on Drupal, a content management framework used by around 2 million websites. We have created a native Drupal distribution, which is therefore released under the free GNU General Public License, version 2. AAll components can be viewed, modified, and shared. This also means we cannot grant exclusive usage rights—but you do receive unrestricted and perpetual usage rights.
- Published on openCode, GitHub, and Drupal.org
- True open-source development, no openwashing: OpenCulturas is developed openly and with reusability in mind, supported by the community.
- Governance (decision-making authority and maintenance) lies with the non-profit association OpenCulturas e. V. Review processes and maintainership ensure that only vetted changes are integrated into the codebase.
- OpenCulturas is publicly funded. We support the Free Software Foundation Europe’s campaign: Public Money, Public Code!
