July 21, 2008
Present:
Allan Bell, Andrew Smith, Eva Grabinski, Guillermo Fuentes, Isaac Morland, Kelley Teahen, Kevin Paxman, Marlon Griffith, Mary Lynn Benninger, Megan McDermott, Pat Lafranier, Paul Snyder (chair), Sarah Forgrave, Tammy Marcinko
Regrets:
David Bean, Gary Ridley, Geoff McBoyle, Karen Jack, Sean Van Koughnett, Terry Stewart, Tobi Day-Hamilton, Mary Jane Jennings, Michelle Douglas-Mills
1. Opening remarks
1. Approval of the agenda 2. Approval of the minutes of June 16 with the following revisions:
2b - reference should be to Google Site Search site search change
2c - reference to "ove", change to "ove Communications"
3. Welcome to Lauren Harrison as the representative from Housing.
2. Pat - Web training for fall
* Looking at less specific titles for the courses, avoiding using product name in titles such as Dreamweaver Intro. * Gave summary of general type of courses thinking about giving. * Webinar - Bob Johnston is having one Oct 14th. Should we sign up for it? Kelly is going to bring the question to a committee. Applied Health Sciences (AHS) may have
It sounds like there will be enough interest, based on quick pole. People to give feedback to Pat. * Refresher courses were suggested, instead of full courses. * More advanced course(s) on supporting contribute from the web master point of view. Would a blog would work for this? Good, but courses still would be good idea. * Higher Education Web Developers was mentioned - on Webops site.
3. Kelly - Identity strategy for the University of Waterloo
* A company has been working with group (18 in size) and has come up with a draft, that was presented. * Kelly to see if PowerPoint presentation could be put online * Company has done the surveys and interviews * Talked about "What is Brand in a University" environment * Difference between "competing" in Canada vs the World.. * Comment: "As an outside I think the decentralization is great, but University of Waterloo lacks a mantra, or a clear message about what ties it all together..." * Talked about "The Beliefs that unify us" - common themes * Comments: * Not always ahead of the curve; in aspiration they are maybe valid, but not necessarily in practice * "We will only do what we know we can eventually master" was discussed, is this consistent with the being innovative? * "very connective" - students connect us * Discussed what Positioning University of Waterloo might sound like - sounds great. * A new brand filter - "Making the future in everything we do" * Comments on positioning summary * "walking a tight-rope" act. Sounds like we only want high performing people. * "Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)" north view discussed * Faculty of Art's sort of "left" out * Brand Framework * This is for internal use, not public. * Brand promise - "Be a future maker" * University of Waterloo is "the" university, not just "a" university to offer... * Comments and discussion on this * What this would mean to... * All well and good for incoming, but what about long term (70 year old) staff/faculty * Waterloo silo's vs MIT inter-discipline - others find this more open from members from other Universities. * Faculty being viewed, but how many staff? Committee is about ½ staff * Students - entrepreneurship vs millenum view of students * How it would influence what we do: * Think about, send thoughts to Kelly. * What is the next step... how does this affect what this group is doing? * Once it is approved/finalized, then the Common Look and Feel (CLF) and Web will need to reflect this * Comment that he got a different "vib" from this group. Group not seeing itself in this document??? Some excited, but how to get people to buy in... will need strong leadership...
4. Content management system (Eva/Paul)
* Update on status of project * Looked at business case if put forward * Finally, looked at the various risk/rewards/etc * Research of CMS use/not use at other Universities * Discussion - what are the most important aspects of what we would like to keep - what is working that we should keep. * Multiple users contributing content * Ease of use * Flexibility in incorporating media (video) * Flexibility to fix things that are mostly right, can "fix"/adjust template/CLF to ones needs * Ability to handle sites that don't fall under the standard CLF * Meaningful url's * Can have pages that can be auto generated * Able to be able to edit pages with editor of choice Comment - Web apps should be able to be seamingless integrated with other web pages/sites. * What should change: * Solve permission issues * A better governance model would solve(?) the permission issues, group issues * Create once, publish many times * All be able to tap into UWdir and update our sites - to generate contact/info pages * More web services - one site that does it, rather than multiple sites doing this * Automatic method to push out information that changes term by term, rather than multiple people manually doing this. * Password protection for pages managed by author * Single sign on/authentication * Changes to templates shouldn't need to have people to individually do it. * Autochecking of pages for verification, compliant, html, CLF * Automatic notification of old pages * Control bad style (large fonts). * If we were to move to CMS. What kind of strategy makes sense:
a) Supporting one central installation and migrating sites to that installation? b) Supporting a central installation with the option of sites implementing their own instance of the software? c) Supporting a mixed environment with those sites that could benefit from the features of a CMS moving to this environment and others continuing with the use of Dreamweaver/Contribute.
5. Comments:
C (mixed) approach - concept of dreamweaver template still kept, but moved to cms system. * The decisions as to which approach made at group level, not individuals. * C (mixed) - scale down the tools that create the non-CMS pages/contents. Paul - how would this be done/decided? * CMS are starting to pop up and which ones are being chosen by whoever puts them into place. Need to have a suggest/supported CMS choice * C - allows for multiple CMS installations, vs A's central installations. * Concern over the fact at multiple CMS, may make it difficult to transfer/share data vs one central CMS. * Multiple CMS... makes it difficult to develop/help with development of sites. * Can different depts./faculty decide which (A,B,C) approach they choose? If this is true, then this eliminates A approach by definition. * It sounds like option C is likely the only viable approach. * It might not make sense for smaller groups to use CMS? * If the CMS solves the problems given and provides what users need, does it matter whether it is centrally based? * Ownership of web is a consideration. * Likely a given that we will have to support a mixed environment in the near future. But should be consider just a transition stage. * Should think what is better for the whole campus, not just one's area.
Search issue (Megan's topic) postponed to Aug meeting.