We use the Installatron plugin with the Domain of One's Own project to provide an easy way for users on the system to install a variety of open-source software. Installatron has great documentation for customizing the install process and hooking into that functionality which we've used to setup packages of plugins and themes in Wordpress as well as write install information to a separate community Wordpress install.
This code uses FeedCache to store the contents of a Google Spreadsheet to a local file for faster access. That spreadsheet has columns for Course Name, Instructor, and Course Code which populates a dropdown form as part of the install process for students to identify whether the install is related to a course.