Web Advisory Committee (WAC) Meeting

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 3:00 to 4:30 pm

Present:

Mary Lynn Benninger, Don Duff-McCracken, Sarah Forgrave, Guillermo Fuentes, Bob Hicks, Karen Jack, John Kemp, Pat Lafranier, Tammy Marcinko, Geoff McBoyle, Paul Miskovsky, Issac Morland, Kris Olafson, Kevin Paxman, Terry Stewart (Chair), Kelly Teahen and Evan Truong

Absent:

David Bean, Allen Bell, Tobi Day-Hamilton, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Jaymis Goertz, Eva Grabinski, Marlon Griffith, Lauren Harrison, Jim Johnston, Megan McDermott and Sean Van Koughnett

1. Chair's remarks

a) Welcome to Evan Truong from Map Analysis and Design (Faculty of Environment). Evan is replacing Andrew Smith who is currently on a secondment.

b) Past Events: May 21 - O'Reilly Media Webinar - "Twitter Power Tips". Broadcast is available at [[http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/e/1327][www.oreillynet.com/pub/e/1327]]

May 22 - Alan Kirker from Information Systems and Technology's (IST's) Instructional Technology and Multimedia Services (ITMS) group gave an overview of what is currently available in terms of transcribing and captioning technology as part of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act - Accessible Information and Communication Standard.

June 11 - "Revolutionize Content Distribution with Dynamic Content: Case Study at HarperCollins Publishing." *

June 9 - Social Media Summit

June 16 - "Facebook and Twitter Recruitment Tools to Engage Prospective Students". Marketing and Undergraduate Recruitment Office (MUR) may have registered for this seminar but if anyone has any information, it would be great if they could pass along to the committee. * Canada 3.0 was well attended and organized. The conference ended with the Stratford Declartion: "We agree that:

- We have the opportunity to lead the world in digital media and create a national advantage by commercializing innovation - To be a lead in digital media all Canadians should be connected to all Canadian content on a fair and transparent basis
- All Canadians should have the opportunity to participate fully in the digital world - an increasingly mobile world
- Success requires new business models that encourage national collaboration and co-operation.

c) Upcoming Events: July 20-22, 2009. Eduweb at Doubletree in Chicago. Pat Lafranier and Lisa Tomalty-Crans will be attending. http://www.eduwebconference.com/ * June 25, 2009. 1-2pm. Web squared: "when web meets the world, we get web squared." * June 23, 2009. Pat Lafranier will be meeting with Organizational and Human Development (OHD)'s ST&D Committee to discuss funding for educational activities such as webinars.

d) Web Content Management system (WebCMS) - Ontario Government has announced it chose a product for the electronic content management software supplier. Terry spoke with Meg Beckel again and was informed that Martin van Nierop is working with our vendor for an announcement soon.

e) University of Waterloo Common Look and Feel (CLF) Updated Template - result of last year's project group. Template will be available from the WebOps site soon. Has been tested but only new sites will use the updated template. Changes include the privacy statement in the footer and one column option. (Existing sites won't be encouraged to update.)

f) IT Task Force Report - Geoff gave a brief report as Chair of the Task Force. The Task Force submitted 18 recommendations focussing on three key areas; centralizing standards, streamlining IST activities and improving communication.
A new committee, Computing Technology and Services Committee (CTSC), is recommended and would include senior IT Managers from the Faculties and directors of IST. University Committee on Information Systems and Technology (UCIST) would become Committee for Information Technology Application and Management (CITAM) and focus on teaching, learning and research activities at the University. WAC would become advisory to CITAM, Computing Technology and Services Committee (CTSC) and the Web Steering Committee.

g) *Internet Explorer 8*(IE8) - IST is compiling a web page of IE8 issues - these include incompatibility with some University of Waterloo applications including UW-ACE, Quest, GAP, etc. (http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/istweb/ie8problems.html)

h) Angel has been bought out by Blackboard and has left a 3 year window of support for Angel. This leaves only Desire2Learn as competition. IST is investigating solutions.

i) Jason Greatrex is moving within IST from Client Services to Application Support and will no longer be responsible for web support.

2. Minutes of May 20, 2009 approved

3. E-commerce standards and procedures (Jason Testart)

Finance is implementing an e-commerce site to assist users who will need a business plan to comply with the e-commerce standards and practices.

Beanstream is University of Waterloo's intermediary between the credit cards holders and the issuing banks. The main reason University of Waterloo commissions Beanstream is to keep all credit card information and data off University of Waterloo servers.

Five levels of compliance exist and 12 recommendations within the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards to which Waterloo falls mainly in categories 1 and 2. Heavy fines exist from the acquiring banks and any suspensions could affect Waterloo's ability to process any credit cards.

Discussion / Questions:

Is there a dollar limit and is it worth it? There are fees to set these up with Beanstream, so any amounts would need to be considered in the business plan.

For conference fees, as a suggestion, can these sites be disabled once completed but be re-loaded? Yes, this is a common practice but should be addressed in business plan.

How quick is the process? This takes approximately 1 month.

Finance has information about the implementation procedures on the website http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infofin/ecommerce/implementation.html. Jason's PowerPoint presentation has been loaded onto the WAC website.

4. DNS Resolution policy subcommittee (Terry Stewart)

In Jim's absence, Terry spoke of the mandate developed by the subcommittee: * Conflict resolution * (un)intentional masquerading * Best practices vis-à-vis the use of www * Registering other uwaterloo domains is not necessary at this time.

5. Advertisements and University of Waterloo web pages subcommittee (Kelly Teahen)

University of Waterloo currently has no policy with regards to web advertising or advertising in general. Athletics does accept advertising on its website, however no ads or links to alcohol or tobacco. These ads are components of larger sponsorship agreements including signage at games, public address messages and facility banners.

Other examples of "advertising" include sponsor recognition on non-academic sites. Some magazines, newsletters and journals accept advertising but they do not appear online.

Other universities across Canada vary widely; some accept at the discretion of senior management while others support an absolutely no advertising policy.

The subcommittee recommends that University of Waterloo develop a policy on web advertising that will allow the existing relationships with Athletics, and recognize that sponsor links may be added to non-academic event pages. Web Advisory should also recommend that no further advertising be allowed in Waterloo web space. More discussion is needed regarding this issue and will be an item on July's agenda. Topics will include: a distinction between advertising and sponsorships; selling space; clubs and students pages (have not yet been reviewed); and discussion regarding disclaimers such as "powered by" at the bottom of pages.

6. University of Waterloo social networking - Tabled

Megan McDermott and Kelly Teahen circulated a compilation of the uses and users of Social Networking on campus. This discussion has been tabled to the July meeting and for all members who were absent, a hard copy has been sent in campus mail.

7. Meeting times

Terry received replies from most members and it has been decided that the meeting times will remain 3:00-4:30 pm. July 15th meeting will be in Biology 1 (B1) - 266.

*Meeting adjourned - 4:30 pm*

-- TerryStewart - 25 Jun 2009