Web Advisory Committee (WAC) Meeting

Wednesday October 21, 2009 - Needles Hall (NH) 3001

Present:

Marta Bailey, Janice Cooke, Don Duff-McCracken, Jeff Dunnett (Guest), Sarah Forgrave, Chris Francis, Guillermo Fuentes, Eva Grabinski, Chris Gray, Marlon Griffith, Adam Hewgill, Karen Jack, John Kemp, Pat Lafranier, Geoff McBoyle, Paul Miskovsky, Kris Olafson, Kevin Paxman, Terry Stewart (Chair), and Jonathan Woodcock.

Absent:

David Bean, Mary Lynn Benninger, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Tobi Day-Hamilton, Lauren Harrison, Jaymis Goertz, Jim Johnston, Tammy Marcinko, Isaac Morland, Kelly Teahen, Evan Truong, and Sean Van Koughnett

1. Chair's remarks

a) New members:

Welcome to Adam Hewgill from Housing, Jonathan Woodcock (Engineering, replacing Eva), Janice Cooke (Office of Development and Alumni Affairs (ODAA)) and Chris Francis (Office of Research). Lara Babalola will be replacing Sarah Forgrave in Science while Sarah is seconded to Communications and Public Affairs. Tobi Day-Hamilton will be stepping down and a replacement will be appointed shortly.

b) Past events:

End to End Higher Education Web Redevelopment (October 13th) - Earthbound Media - City College of San Francisco (http://events.linkedin.com/End-End-Higher-Ed-Web-Redevelopment/pub/113351) . Terry and Eva participated. It was a good presentation in that it covered common deliverables for web design projects. The example they used was [[http://www.ccsf.edu/NEW/en.html][City College of San Francisco]] which is currently undergoing a redesign, not unlike the redesign process here at University of Waterloo.

c) Policy 8 - Information security:

Karen Jack circulated the draft of Policy 8 - Information Security and a copy of the Frequently Asked Questions. Deadline for comments is October 21.

2. Minutes of September 16, 2009

Approved

Thanks to Geoff McBoyle for chairing the September meeting.

3. Branding initiative (Sarah Forgrave)

The W logo is gone - it will not be moving forward but the task force is still working on an alternative. Data is still being collected from the survey, but Sarah noted the response rate was low internally and they are still collecting data.

4. Web redesign project (Sarah Forgrave)

The Request for Proposals (RFP) was sent out and will close on October 26. Applications and packages are being reviewed. The consultant will hopefully be in place by mid-November. The deliverables are being considered and the team will be working with the consultant to come up with a definitive list. At this stage a list of tasks rather than key deliverables are being considered.

5. Policy on advertising on University of Waterloo web pages (Karen Jack)

A memo from the Advertising sub-committee (Kevin, Karen and Kelley) was circulated to all WAC members. The sub-committee also met with Brenda MacDonald from Office of Research for feedback. Three questions arose from this consultation:

Should it be recommended that this become an official "policy" as opposed to a "statement"?

What are the implications of the first sentence: "This policy applies to any official University of Waterloo website hosted at an external domain, and all websites in the uwaterloo.ca domain except those which belong to external separately incorporated organizations (e.g., "University Colleges" As it stands, this would make the policy applicable to things like: student societies who use University of Waterloo web space, Waterloo-held conferences, personal pages housed on University of Waterloo web space, but not things like: Conrad Grebel's pages, pages like ‘feds.ca' or pages for external conferences held at Waterloo. As well, the sub-committee is aware of several ‘official' University of Waterloo web pages that are not in the ‘uwaterloo.ca' domain (e.g., waterloowarriorfootball.com, askthewarrior.com, etc).

As written, this policy would prohibit things like Information Systems and Technology (IST) linking to product info, pages for licensed software, Retail Services linking to product info. Graphics linking to print drivers, etc. Adding "in exchange for money, products, and/or services" to the advertising definition may help, but we don't wish to open a giant loophole that would allow advertising for other who offer "free, if you link back to us". Suggestions?

Discussion: Team sponsorship - the sub-committee does not see team sponsorship being hindered by the policy but perhaps there should have specific rules (e.g., Solar car) * Logos like those included with Bookit, Oracle, Aruba, are part of the software but these programs are internal to University of Waterloo. We may need to broaden the language for these types of circumstances. * Athletics - may need to set up a meeting to define a clear policy. * Retail Services are more of a resource rather than an advertisement, but again, may need clear policy. * Authorization of any exemptions would be done by the VP External Relations - could perhaps be a conflict of interest. May need to speak with the Secretariat regarding the senior body to make the final decision. * Why a policy rather than guidelines? Policies are more binding and guidelines are more open to interpretation. Policies are also simpler to enforce. * There was a comment that the definitions are too broad in the Introduction and Scope and Advertising. * Some professors have spin off companies that they wish to point people to on their web pages. Policy 66 (Use of University Resources and Affiliation) currently covers these issues. * There is not context of why this is being executed. A Preamble was suggested. The sub-committee will meet again to incorporate the feedback and will report back to WAC at the next meeting. *Agenda Item.*

6. Waterloo Content Management System (CMS) (Eva Grabinski)

Eva's presentation has been added to the WAC web site. Open Text will support two training sessions - Web Solutions Management Server Project Manager and Project Builder. Five University of Waterloo staff will attend the two-day Project Manager course, scheduled for October 26-27. Twenty staff will attend the 5-day Project Builder training course. Ten staff members are scheduled for the week of November 9 and ten are scheduled for the week of November 16. The project team members were identified by interest and flexibility within current work loads. The current team will consist of the core project team and consultants from across the campus (e.g., accessibility, policy, security, communications, etc.). The next steps will be to define the organizational structure, planning sub-committees, defining deliverables and sub-committee tasks and communicating throughout the campus. Anyone interested in participating or any questions or feedback is asked to contact Eva. Sarah asked about rumour that she heard that Open Text was dropping support for their Web Solutions products and would not be providing updates past version 10. Eva replied that she had not heard this rumour and would investigate. *Agenda Item.*

7. Email Link on University of Waterloo Home Page (Pat Lafranier)

Several suggestions were discussed: * Do nothing; * Have the link go to a simple landing page where the user would select their mail interface solution. * Have the link got to a landing page where the user entered his ADS userid/password, which would then lookup the mail host in WatIAM and send the person to the correct place; * Similar to above except drop a cookie so the link would automatically go through. The general feeling was that there should be as few clicks as possible while not making it overly complex. Terry reported that this item was on the Agenda of Computing Technology and Services Committee (CTSC) for the next day.

8. E-commerce (Marlon Griffith)

To date, Engineering, Mathematics, Registrar's Office, Distance Education, Alumni Affairs and the Secretariat have all replied to the request for information regarding their interest (or lack of interest) in E-commerce activity. Terry is collating the information and will have a summary for the next meeting. Agenda Item.


9. Browser Support (Marlon Griffith)

This issue is on the CTSC's radar, but it is unclear when this item will be added to the agenda. Currently CTSC has had two meetings and is still in the process of prioritizing the agenda. The output from OpenText Web Solution CMS will work with all browsers. The interface for web authors and editors will work in the major browsers. Only site administration requires Internet Explorer 7 or 8.

10. DNS Resolution - Tabled

11. Other business

YouTube Waterloo Space

Sarah reported that Waterloo has been successful in subscribing to a YouTube channel (a student willingly gave up the channel for University of Waterloo). Sarah is actively managing the site and is asking that anyone who might have videos of interest to please send to her attention. The videos must be in good taste and as much breadth as possible is encouraged. The site can accommodate full length (~ 1 hour) and high definition. The Faculty of Environment has already moved all movies over. The link is not yet available at web.uwaterloo.ca as it still requires additional approval.

Next Meeting - Wednesday, November 18 - 3:00-4:30 pm - location TBD

*Meeting adjourned - 4:25 pm*

-- TerryStewart - 04 Nov 2009