Wednesday, September 15, 2010 - Needles Hall (NH) 3001 - 3:00 pm
Present:
Lara Babalola, Marta Bailey, Mary Lynn Benninger, Janice Cooke, Don Duff-McCracken, Sarah Forgrave, Chris Francis, Eva Grabinski, Chris Gray, Lauren Harrison, Karen Jack, Janet Janes, Pat Lafranier, Christine Liebig, Paul Miskovsky, Isaac Morland, Kevin Paxman, Terry Stewart (Chair), Kelley Teahen, Evan Truong, and Jonathan Woodcock
Absent:
Michelle Douglas-Mills, Guillermo Fuentes, Marlon Griffith, Adam Hewgill, Jim Johnston, John Kemp, Tammy Marcinko, Kris Olafson and Wendy Philpott
1. Chair's remarks
The Chair welcomed guests - Amy Aldus and Gayle Goodfellow from Math * Geoff McBoyle has stepped down from the Committee, due to time commitments of undertaking the Acting Vice-president/Provost role.
2. Web redesign (Sarah Forgrave)
[See Powerpoint presentation on home page]
The project scope began with work on the Waterloo home page, pathway pages (future student, current students, etc.), panels (Bulletin, Events, etc.) and finally Other (news, Support Waterloo, etc.). The team also looked at the technical requirements; accessibility compliance and information architecture. Phase 1 involved the needs analysis and Phase 2 invited feedback from faculty and students. There was not enough response so the team went back out onto campus. Feedback and testing will be shared internally through web.uwaterloo.ca. Next steps will include a web-style guide which is expected from White Whale in October; source code to be delivered by White Whale by end of October; a possible Bootcamp to prepare the campus with overview presentations aimed at giving pilot site contributors a solid foundational overview of branding, writing for the web, accessibility, usability, content analysis and information architecture.
The question was asked whether the coding for the new design would be made available to the Faculties so they could incorporate it into their on-line applications. Design Elements and Mockups are online. Action: Sarah will get back to committee regarding this question.
A Policy outlining control of the content management and web pages will need to be considered. WAC has an opportunity to help facilitate and incorporate from the grass roots.
3. Waterloo Content Management System (CMS) (Eva Grabinski)
[See Powerpoint Presentation on home page] A CMS Implementation Team has been created with each member working on their particular functions full time. The pilot websites include Housing, Student Life, Waterloo Web Resources, Waterloo main, Communications, Daily Bulletin, About Waterloo and the Events Calendar. Next steps will include implementation and training, naming conventions and code standards, Student Life pilot, adopter kits, needs assessments and Drupal 7 evaluation.
4. Web Technology Standards Committee (Paul Miskovsky)
No report at this time.
5. Other business
The Chair asked members to consider other items of business for future meetings. Several suggestions were made:
Membership
The Chair asked the committee to suggest any missing departments or units within the University. The Church Colleges were suggested. *Action: Terry will canvass the Church Colleges to see if they have any interest in WAC.*
Governance and resources for training was suggested. WAC may want to look at forming a working group to formulate the questions that may lead to discussion. It was suggested that perhaps Web Steering could be invited to a WAC meeting but only after WAC has had time to discuss any recommendations
Reusability and content ownership was also suggested. *Action: All members are asked to bring suggestions to the next meeting for other items of business.*
6. Next meeting - Wednesday, October 20 - 3:00 pm in NH 3004
*Meeting adjourned - 4:30 pm*
-- Main.TerryStewart - 30 Sep 2010