Web Advisory Committee meeting (March 20, 2013)

March 20, 2013–  Needles Hall 1101 – 3:00 p.m. 

Present:

Daniel Allen, Marta Bailey, Kristy Budd, Pavol Chvala (Guest), Janice Cooke, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Donald Duff-McCracken, Chris Francis, Guillermo Fuentes, Marlon Griffith, Karen Jack, Jim Johnston, Pat Lafranier, Collin McIntyre, Amy Meredith, Liam Morland, Kris Olafson, Rose Padacz, Megan Saunders, Susan Shifflett, Terry Stewart (Chair), Andrea Sweet, Kathy Szigeti (for Chris Gray), Nathan Vexler (Guest), Jeff Voskamp(Guest), Jonathan Woodcock, Charles Woods (for Chris Gray).

Regrets:

Daniel Allen, David Annable, Jay Athia, Cynthia Breen, Chris Gray.

Absent:

Amy Aldous, Heather Anderson,  Alison Gelata, Nigel Henriques, Vadim Kononov, Paul Miskovsky.

1. Chair’s Remarks

• Welcome to guests Nathan Drexler and Pavol Chvala.

• Please note the e-mail from Heather Wey that all Twitter widgets need to be rebuilt; there was also a nice tutorial from Heather on adding Google Analytics to your WCMS site.

• Pascal Calarco led a committee investigating Digital Media Asset Management. The committee’s report is being finalized and I will send it out to Web Advisory as soon as I get a copy.  They are recommending a pilot with selected Faculties and Units using a product called Assetbank. The Chair will ask Pascal to present the committee’s findings at the next Web Advisory meeting. 

2. Approval of Minutes.

• The minutes of February 20, 2013 were approved as posted.

​3. Busines​s Arising

The question was raised at the last meeting with respect to the URL Shortener (uwat.ca).  The Chair reminded the group that the Short URL guidelines and recommendations document is in place.  Jeff will report on the technical status at the next meeting.

4. Demonstration of a Web-based Digital Signage Solution (Collin McIntyre)

Collin demonstrated to WAC a new web-based digital signage solution. He has put together a team and a start-up company (VisiBull) to further refine the product.  The system is current running in the Faculty of Environment and the  Stratford campus.  The application was developed using Ruby on Rails, runs using Google Chrome and is usable on any web device:  PC, Laptop, phone, table, etc. Contact Collin to get access to the beta application.

Questions and Comments:

Q.  Why did you go to a host outside the uwaterloo.ca domain?

A.  Because the software is owned by an external company.

Q.  Will we be able to use this freely on campus?

A.  Software subscription details have yet to be decided.

Q.  How does the system deal with Internet outages?

A.  If a connection is lost, the screen won't go blank but the screen will freeze at its current state until the Internet is back up. 

5. Waterloo CMS Update (Pat Lafranier/Kris Olafson)

• You can add Google Analytics tracking code to your WCMS site? 
• SEW: March-April courses now available
• WCMS 1.6 has been released!
• WCMS Drop-in labs. The WCMS Drop-in Lab is open Tuesdays & Thursdays – 9:00-4:00 (MC 2060).
• Who’s new to the WCMS. 22 more sites have launched in the Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) since our last update on February 13. To see a complete list of sites in the WCMS and sites in the progress of being migrated, check out the WCMS migration schedule on the Web Resources site at: https://uwaterloo.ca/web-resources/wcms-migration.
  • Associate Provost, Students
  • Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology
  • Centre for Teaching Excellence
  • Chong Research Group
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre
  • Faculties and Academics
  • Fatigue and Stress Analysis Lab
  • (The) Games Institute
  • Knowledge Integration exhibition
  • Office and Services
  • Partnerships in Dementia Care
  • Pawliszyn Research Group
  • Philosophy
  • Recreation and Leisure Studies
  • Rooney Lab
  • School of Environment, Enterprise and Development
  • Science Technical Services
  • Servos Group
  • Thanks for reading the minutes
  • Social Media
  • Stratford Campus
  • Waterloo Architecture
  • Add your site to the WCMS migration schedule.
• Developer Drop-in Labs. If you are interested in providing feedback to the WCMS development team, please join us!  Labs are held on the 4th Wednesday of every month from 1-4:30 p.m. in MC 2060.
• Accessibility Legislation. The University of Waterloo is committed to meeting our obligations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).  Read all about the standard and what you need to do on the Web Resources site.
• WCMS Updates
• 230 sites are now up and running
• SEW courses are filling up quickly.  There is a change that a couple of the courses might not run, there has not been enough people signing up for them.
• Google Analytics started the last week of March.
• Natasha Jennings is leaving the project.  She is being replaced by a contract hire, Andrea Jennings.
• WCMS 1.6 has been released.
• Liam Morland is working with Food Services and API, Food Services are moving into Drupal, this will be available to everyone.

• Demo of Collaborate

  • Drupal based site, open atrium on Drupal 6

  •  Functionality – Public and private groups

  • Can post individually, publicly, reminder, blog.

  • CAS Mobile update - full screen on mobile now, this is open if anyone would like to try it out please contact Kris Olafson

Questions and Comments:

Q.  Is this only running on 6?

A.  Collaborate.uwaterloo.ca is running Drupal 6, while all our other systems are running on Drupal 7.  It will likely be upgraded to a Drupal 7 version this summer.

Q.  Who will the audience be?

A.  Working groups, committees…….

C.  We are able to do the same on SharePoint but do not have the staff to support it.

Q.  When a new message is added, is an email sent out?

A.  Yes, you would need to set up the account to reply right from email.

C.  Does not work for UofW blog site, it is not visually appealing.

C.  Let Kris know if you have any ideas of how else it can be used. 

• Demo of Mybalsamiq.com

  • Licensing is cheap

  • 10 limited projects

  • Would like to move info from Widget to here.

  • Like Visio but user friendly and more social.

  • Looking to use this in WCMS for mock-ups.

  • Contact Kris if you would like to try.

Questions and Comments:

Q.  Where do we stand with voting on feature requests?

A.  Tyler is currently working on this now, taking longer than expected.

Q.  Is this generalizable to others wanting response?

A.  Yes, I would like to work with other groups to help provide this feedback functionality.

6. Digital Initiatives Update (Jonathan Woodcock)

Web Accessibility Working Group Report is now online. See: uw-web-accessibility-working-group-2013-03-13.pdf.  Jonathan's presentation on web accessibility is also available online. 

DI staff updates:

• Hiring a web content specialist on 6 month contract, interested candidates can find the ad at: https://uwaterloo.ca/my-career/temporary-opportunities-and-secondments-0#WebContent
• Support on developing the Publications capability (contractor or procurement)
• Project coordinator for implementing the Web Accessibility Report recommendations (likely a contract position)

Working groups:

Multilingual site needs: Requests have been coming in. For the time being the following applies:  English is the language of business at the organization, and uWaterloo WCMS will support it as such.   If in the future strategic direction and needs dictate multilingual support it will be explored.  Please do continue to send in requests to support this case in the future.

Web Advisory and Social Media Committees are jointly starting two business case working groups and would like participation from staff working on the web.  Please contact Jonathan Woodcock if you or someone in your area would be interested in either of the following two working groups:

• Web/Social Analytics and Management Business Case – contributors needed
• Central Blogging Capability Business Case – chair and contributors needed

Web focused, and technical perspectives will be critical to forming the requirements on both of these projects and we want to ensure those viewpoints are represented.

Also Jonathan would like to request those who are either attending or have had a speaker proposal accepted to PSEWEB (pseweb.ca) this year to get in touch with him.  We've had a number of speaker proposals accepted in CPA and would like to co-ordinate with everyone who is speaking or attending to make sure Waterloo gets the most benefit from a strong presence there.

7. Visual Identity Update

Ellen presented an update on the refinements to the Visual Identity. She was here to show what has been completed with the Faculty’s colours, and shields. CPA is now moving into academics with the support of Christine and has had great feedback from the Deans.  Faculties have now changed ideas as to how the Faculty’s will look, i.e. Colours, shield.

Business Cards:

• Business cards will be changing over to a new theme, ETA end of April.
• The seal will be presented on the back side of all business cards.
• Faculty colours will not be displayed on the back side of the business cards.

Stationery:

• The seal will be on the page.
• The seal is not bold or unconventional.
• It will speak to our international offices.

Graphic Elements

• The goal is to up our game in the University rankings, to decide on how we are going to build a brand.  The university needs to present itself in a conventional way.
• Looking at a Publication bar, we will be asking the campus to use the Publication bar.  Every piece of communication will always have a publication bar.  How we place it on the page is still not yet decided
• The version that was presented is the 3rd version of the Publication bar.

Branding:

• Trying to build a cohort brand for the University.
• Looking at using the shields as advertising.
• Putting the shields on Vans, bus shelters.

Colour:

The University’s choice of Yellow/Gold was discussed.  Is it yellow or is it gold? The colour has never been distinguished as yellow or gold.  Many feel that the colour is not up-to-date; it clashes with the Faculty colours.  It is also confusing to people as it is not only the University’s colours but the city of Waterloo. 

Questions and Comments:

Q.  Which shield to use?

A.  Have gone back to the original shield, with three distinct lions.

Q.  Would the schools and departments be under the Faculty’s identity?

A.  At this time it will be the Faculty then the school.  We will be going back to the Deans for feedback.

C.  In the earlier presentation for the visibility side, we need to increase the font size, 12 is the minimum size recommended for font. 

Q.  Is there enough contrast of the colours, yellow on white in the Publication bar?  Is this a concern for accessibility?

A.  The white will be tweaked for a better contrast.

Q.  Is “Ideas that change the world” meant to change “Ideas start here”?

A.  Not at this point, at the mid cycle review brand positioning will be discussed then.

C.  At this point the University does not have an ad campaign.

Q.  What is the strategy on removing the old brands?

A.  Trying to pick key high visibility and change those elements first.

Q.  Are Faculty colours game?

A.  Faculties would like to keep their colours, 2 Faculties have chosen not to use their colours in all elements.

C.  Faculty colours do not always mesh well with the University’s colours.

Q.  Update on time lines:  when will the changes be made in the CMS?

A.  Critical next step is to meet with the power users; hoping to be completed by the winter term, putting it into place over the Spring term.

Q.  What about scanning QR codes on business cards?

A.  Consensus – WAC does not think they should be on business cards.

Q.  Was it ever considered to drop the yellow?

A.  We were refining not re-branding; no, it was not discussed.

Q.  CMS – Faculty colours, are they staying, finding it hard to move forward?

A.  Not sure, still in exploration, not implementation. 

C.  Faculty colours will not be used in a primary way.

Feedback for Ellen Please!

8. Next M​eeting 

• 3:00-4:30p.m., April 17, 2013. NH 1101 (Note room).

9. Meeting Adjourned at 4:30 p.m.