Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - Needles Hall (NH) 3001 - 3:00 pm
Present:
Amy Aldous, Lara Babalola, Janice Cooke, Don Duff-McCracken, Sarah Forgrave, Chris Francis, Guillermo Fuentes, Eva Grabinski, Chris Gray, Marlon Griffith, Adam Hewgill, Karen Jack, Janet Janes, Pat Lafranier, Christine Liebig, Megan McDermott, Paul Miskovsky, Isaac Morland, Kris Olafson, Kevin Paxman, Wendy Philpott Terry Stewart (Chair), Kelley Teahen, Evan Truong, and Jonathan Woodcock *
Absent:
Dave Annable, Marta Bailey, Mary Lynn Benninger, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Lauren Harrison, John Kemp and Tammy Marcinko
1. Chair's remarks
The Chair welcomed Amy Aldous from the Faculty of Math and Dave Annable from Renison University College. Dave will represent the University Colleges. (Dave was unable to attend this meeting due to prior obligations.) Welcome back to Megan McDermott who has returned from parental leave.
The Chair reminded the members that as representatives of their area, they should be taking back information from this Committee to their constituency and sharing it widely with those involved in web and communications activity.
Upcoming Events - Effective Content Management - Content Management System (CMS) course - Thursday, November 18 - 1:30-3:00 William G. Davis Computer Research Centre (DC) 1304 - only 50 spots available.
2. Approval of September Minutes - approved as distributed
3. Membership
Terry confirmed that Amy and Dave will be new members to WAC and asked the committee if there was a need for any additional members from other parts of campus. There were no other suggestions.
4. Web redesign (Sarah Forgrave)
(Sarah's PowerPoint presentation is online.) The redesign task force has defined four phases. Phase one includes allowing the site maintainers to revamp the existing Common Look and Feel (CLF) to use the new word marks and colour sets as defined in the positioning guide, wider pages, etc. The protocol will expand the content area, including language and media assets. The white background must be maintained.
Phase two protocol is the new common header which all sites will be expected to implement. Implementation will be using script files (PHP) and be linked directly or hosted locally. All codes and examples will be on web.uwaterloo.ca and webops.uwaterloo.ca sites. The common header has been developed to flow into 100% page width (i.e., it is not fixed width).
Phase three will be launching the sites in the new design and Content Management System - included will be Housing, Student Life Office, Waterloo main and Waterloo Web Resources. Phase four will be a staged process with faculties and then finally the rollout. There is no definite timelines yet but areas will be expected to adopt Phase two in the next 2-3 months. There was some discussion that the search facility in the common header only allowed for Waterloo searches and not searches of the local web space. Many members saw the need for searches of local web space as important. Sarah will take this under consideration and report back.
The word marks for some department names are simply too long to work with Phase one and two protocols. Even if they fit, the word "Waterloo" from the word mark will be placed right over the "Waterloo" from the common header. It was suggested that the "Waterloo |" be removed for department sites. Sarah will take this suggestion to the Visual Identity Committee and report back.
5. CMS update (Eva Grabinski)
(Eva's PowerPoint presentation is online.) The status of the CMS project to date - Waterloo Drupal capabilities, major tasks still underway, Drupal camp in Toronto, communication and other items.
The major tasks underway include revision control system, Waterloo events calendar, multiple sites support, blogging, taxonomy implementation, and evaluation of Drupal 6 and Drupal 7.
6. Web Standards Advisory Committee (Paul Miskovsky)
(Paul's PowerPoint presentation is online.) The committee looked at two issues - Mobile Browser standards and technical issues using hostnames v. folders in Drupal. There was a consensus that the committee should look at how standards are compliant in a browser is and not to chase each browser and platform individually. There are issues with maintaining apps particularly those written by students, how long they are maintained and what other options can be utilized.
The hostnames is always an issue particularly with current publications. The committee suggests a standard of naming and then reverse proxy servers to redirect. Jeff Voskamp, part of the CMS team, is currently investigating this issue.
7. Content stewardship and ownership
Tabled to next meeting
8. Next meeting - Wednesday, November 17 - 3:00 pm in NH 3001
*Meeting adjourned - 4:30 pm*
-- TerryStewart - 25 Oct 2010