Web Advisory Committee (WAC) Meeting

June 16, 2008

Present:

David Bean, Gary Ridley, Geoff McBoyle, Guillermo Fuentes, Karen Jack, Kelley Teahen, Kevin Paxman, Marlon Griffith, Mary Lynn Benninger, Megan McDermott, Pat Lafranier, Paul Snyder (chair), Terry Stewart, Tammy Marcinko,

Regrets:

Allan Bell, Eva Grabinski, Sarah Forgrave, Sean Van Koughnett, Toby Day-Hamilton, Mary Jane Jennings, Isaac Morland, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Andrew Smith

1. Opening remarks

  • Approval of the agenda - approved
  • Approval of minutes of Meeting Minutes of May 7th - approved
  • Information items - next meeting scheduled for July 21

2. Items under discussion

Review of the proposed Privacy Statement (Karen)

  • clarify wording on what server logs contain
  • Alan has comments to pass on and Karen will circulate to group once changes have been made
  • Approval via email as Karen away July 21
  • When approved, link to Privacy statement will be added to footer of common Look and Feel (CLF)

Update on the Web Search subgroup (Megan)

  • Objective to review current state of Search and review Google options
  • Two solutions in use; "old" search and "new" search. Make older search look like newer search in the interim
  • Information Systems and Technology (IST) and Library also have their own implementations of search
  • 5 different options supported by Google – 2 free solutions and 3 enterprise solutions
  • The two free solutions, Custom search engine (CSE) and the AJAX API are being used by the Library and by IST
  • Google Site and Google Appliance are the enterprise apps. See pub/WebAdvisory/May 292008/Google_slieds_June_2008.pdf, page 4 to see site search offerings
  • Google site, a hosted solution, costs $30K will allow 6 million queries
  • Google appliance costs $40K for 2 years and can search public and protected Web sites. It has reporting features and would allow us to move away from local web searches. Having our own box will allow internal searches if the service goes down
  • Detailed comparison with free option vs. Enterprise app. Megan’s group will continue to work in the background and make recommendation to group before support is requested from Alan/University Committee on Information Systems and Technology (UCIST)

3. Update on the identity task force (Kelly)

  • Alumni office is doing an online survey on engagement
  • Identity group had branding workshops. 60 in person interviews, survey of literature. Key leaders spoken to as well
  • Looking at 5 strengths of Waterloo and trying to get a sense of what our vision or goal should be
  • Meeting on Wed. June 18 to identify one of the options or a hybrid of the options to come up with a vision statement
  • It will give the beginnings of a platform towards bigger projects
  • By July/August, you should start to see the platform and statements that will shape our university
  • Ove, excellent presentation. Few tensions need to be resolved. More to update later once June 18 meeting has occurred

Update on the Content Managment Systems (CMS) (project team)

  • Lists current approaches and how well we are doing. Modified approaches such as server side includes – moves us closer to reaching our objective
  • Lists stakeholders involved, diagrams, criteria required, business rationale, etc.
  • Diagrams include: Current web maintenance at the University (using Dreamweaver/Contribute model), CMS web maintenance process – how editors use web browser and interface to work with CMS. Pulls from database and puts into template. Allows manipulation
  • Other universities are being queried for their CMS experiences. This is an extremely useful exercise
  • Project group working on benefits portion of the document. Want to make sure it is strong and is aligned with our principals
  • Group will continue to meet throughout the summer to provide a recommendation to Wed Advisory in September

Content management practices: survey results on [[SurveyCommentS4Q5b][tools]] used to maintain Web pages and [[SurveyCommentS4Q8][likes and dislikes]].

  • Another survey might be required later to drill down more. Will these be used to assist with CMS evaluation? Yes. They will definitely help form discussions

Revisions to the CLF templates (Webops)

  • Kevin is making the revisions to the template that were approved by the CLF review committee
  • No change in the look but code clean up. Not a lot of people use the revised template but those who create new pages, will use it. This is more of a refinement to allow for future changes. See June 12 minutes on Webops Site

Topics deferred to next meeting

  • Library guidelines for their Web developers
  • Audience research
    • Tobi to lead a group to develop approaches to audience design
    • Data collected from the survey [[SurveyJan2007#GuidePrinciples][Usability research]]
  • Coordinating data collected from Web Analytics
  • Communicating what we are doing with the campus

--- Paul Snyder