Dana Porter Library 428, Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 3:00-4:30pm
Attendees:
Allan Bell, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Guillermo Fuentes, Eva Grabinski, Marlon Griffith, Karen Jack, Pat Lafranier, Tammy Marcinko, Geoff McBoyle, Isaac Morland, Penny Pudifin, Kevin Paxman, Kelley Teahen, Andrew Smith, Paul Snyder (chair), Terry Stewart, Sean Van Koughnett, Mary Lynn Benninger, Sarah Forgrave, Megan McDermott
Regrets:
Donald Duff-McCracken, Jaymis Goertz, Mary Jane Jennings, Brenda MacDonald, Gary Ridley, Cu Truong
Guests:
Chris Gray, Michelle Cheung (minutes)
1. Chairs opening remarks
* Approval of the agenda * Approval of minutes of January 24th and February meetings - passed
2. Review of marketing and communications Task Force
* March 5 daily bulletin's mention of Marketing and Communications task force with membership varied across campus; * Meg Beckel leading with participation of some members of Web Advisory * Web Advisory to follow the task force progression closely with updates from members of both committees. * Task force is seeking an outside consultant to assist in planning and implementing; could this consultant also be of any use to Common Look and Feel (CLF)? * Committee sees its work as complementary to and in support of the task force. For example, investigations into audience research, navigation techniques, content management systems are critical to the design and implementation of a new CLF.
3. Presentation of audience research sub-group report and recommendations
* Thank you to Alan and members for an excellent report, which members are supportive with minor revisions: * Recommendations should be noted as on-going for many reasons; * One important reason is the fact that the audience is always changing, as well as the increase in websites; thus, the cycle of this work is always running in parallel with different phases. Some work is immediate but the task to inform is constant. * On-going support means on-going budget requirements. Not only are the recommendations to be reviewed and approved by Web Steering and University Committee on Information Systems and Technology (UCIST), but also the commitment to consistently share and research, in values of time and money should be explored. * Research can be done in many ways; for example, lab-testing; in which users are sought to evaluate and comment on redesigns. Users can vary by high schools or current university students, teachers, parents, etc. Another way of gathering statistical data as such is by using Google Analytics. * Overall, this group's recommendations are fully supported by the committee with room to broaden if/ as events take place. They do not conflict with other group recommendations.
4. Review of recommendations of other sub-groups
CLF Definition - Recommendations All 6 recommendations were supported by the committee with the following suggestions: * R3 - the tweaked-CLF template be encouraged for new websites; change 'encouraged' to 'used'; * R4 - the tweaked-CLF template be adopted by current websites if resources are available; change 'if' to 'when' * R5 - Changes in CLF definition should be highlighted (e.g., italics) to inform reader of change
Navigation
The Navigation report listed 14 recommendations. Each were discussed with the following comments: * R1 - concerning a re-write of current documentation was dropped as it conflicted with the CLF recommendations. Note that the following comments relate to the recommendation numbers in the updated report (i.e. with the removal of the original R1). * R1 - All future changes to navigation should be properly documented. Can a change log mechanism be in place? How could this be communicated?Would it be difficult to communicate? * R2-R5, R6, R7, R9, R11 - added "when the website is redesigned". Faculty participation is crucial to initiating this; must determine what area would promote this. Recommendations accepted by committee with the above revisions.
Content management
The Content Management sub-committee lists 5 recommendations. Web Advisory members suggest the following revisions or comments be added to the following items: * R1 - "Web Advisory should compile ..." - remove "Web Advisory"; Someone should do this but we don't need to decide who at this point. * R3 - "Web Advisory and Information Systems and Technology (IST) should develop ..." - remove "Web Advisory and IST" * R4 - "Web Advisory should develop a plan ... investigation of Content Management Systems." Change wording to recommend to UCIST that a sub-committee proceed with an investigation of Content Management System (CMS). * R5 - Recommendation to UCIST to "Provide direction on ensuring that Web maintenance responsibilities are documented in Human Resources job descriptions".
5. recommendations to UCIST March 7 .
-- P. Snyder