Dana Porter Library 428, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 3pm
Attendees:
Sean Van Koughnett, Kevin Paxman, Allan Bell, Kelley Teahen, Jesse Rodgers, Brenda MacDonald, Eva Grabinski, Jaymis Goertz, Mary Lynn Benninger, Penny Pudifin, Tammy Marcinko, Paul Snyder (chair), Pat Lafranier, Geoff McBoyle, Terry Stewart, Guillermo Fuentes, Marlon Griffith, Andrew Smith, Gary Ridley, Isaac Morland, Donald Duff-McCracken.
Regrets:
MaryJane Jennings, Karen Jack, Cu Truong, Sarah Forgrave
1. Opening remarks and introductions
The Chair welcomed members of the committee to the inaugural meeting. Round table introductions by all. Chair observed the breadth of knowledge and responsibilities of committee members as a good representation of the University. Noted by Jesse Rodgers of Communications and Public Affairs (CPA) that he is attending today's meeting but will not be attending future meetings as he has a new job on campus.
Discussion with Paul giving background of the Web Steering Committee, Web Operations Team and the recognition of the need for an Advisory Committee.
Format - Paul suggested meeting every month. Minutes will be taken and posted. May ask others outside this committee to investigate and report on specific issues. Members from Web Operations Team may also attend future meetings.
Guidelines for meeting format - will try to achieve consensus on issues, with perhaps the need to vote; feedback to chair after meeting is always welcome.
Communications - Website is a wiki; contact Paul if you would like to participate with its maintenance; mailing list: webadvisory @ lists
2. Discussion of organization and mandate
The mandate states "make recommendations to University Committee on Information Systems and Technology (UCIST)...". Web Advisory prefers "make recommendations to UCIST and Web Steering Committee":
- this would allow recommendations on technology to be dealt with in a timely manner by UCIST (biweekly meetings)
- other topics such as content organization and accessibility would be of interest to the Web Steering because it includes a broader representation (e.g. External Relations)
- committee members also asked for a clarification of the role of Web Steering
3. Discussion of priorities for the committee
What are the current, pressing priorities that we need to deal with in order to make more effective use of the web? What short and medium term issues should we be thinking about? Twelve discussion topics were proposed by members beforehand and listed. The Committee briefly discussed topics and suggested others. Comments have been organized into the following topic areas.
4. Research
- We need to develop a better understanding of what our clients are looking for and what difficulties they are encountering.
- Do our content providers understand who their audience is?
- Make sure we research before any change; research of users and of the developers. Making changes in advance of this research may result in wasted effort.
- The library has found web analytics useful in providing quantitative information to define what parts of the web sites are most/least requested and in providing insight into usage patterns. These quantitative methods are supplemented by qualitative analysis also.
- This research can be used to allocate more resources to improving sites that are receiving a large number of hits.
- While useful, these measures are really just a benchmark; they don't tell us whether or not users are finding what they were looking for. Talking to users is always helpful.
5. The Common Look and Feel (CLF)
- CLF is looking stale and needs to be updated
- Needs a clearer definition of what it is; is it a starting point or an ending point for Web developers?
- Needs to include more information for developers, e.g. the navigation of the various sites needs to be more consistent
- We need to decide what can be changed; improve and perhaps update with access to various templates for more flexibility.
- Are we doing enough to ensure the accessibility of our sites? The current CLF is accessible. Office for Persons with Disabilities should be consulted if we want to investigate further.
6. Separating content from presentation
- Our sites need to "nimble" so that the presentation can be easily changed to respond to research without overburdening content providers
- need simple content entry; updating content is an issue
- Content Management Systems (CMS) provide a possible solution to this problem. A number are already being used on campus, e.g. a new specialized content management system to maintain the Registrar's Course catalogue. We need to investigate.
7. Other comments
- We have an external and internal audience - should be separate sites?
- Everything is public on our websites (i.e. minutes from meetings). Some of this isn't very appealing, perhaps hide? Have always maintained an open site as we are a public institution- usability, accessibility are very important.
- Should we have a central web server?
- Do we have the appropriate governance structure on Web issues? Need authority - some websites are not following the CLF guidelines.
- Short term changes versus long term changes - what can we do now and what requires more time
Scheduled Meetings (in Bookit). Allan Bell will check the availability of the Dana Porter Library 428 meeting room. Tuesday, Sept 18/07 10:30-noon; Thursday, Oct 18/07 10:30-noon