Web Advisory Committee meeting (November 20, 2013)

November 20, 2013–  MC 2018 – 3:00 p.m. 

Present:

Terry Stewart (Chair), Liz Doede (Secretary), Darren Bondy (New Secretary), Amy Aldous, Daniel Allen, Marta Bailey, Janice Cooke, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Donald Duff-McCracken, Chris Francis, Marlon Griffith, Chris Gray (guest), Karen Jack, Jim Johnston, Tammy Marcinko, Collin McIntyre, Amy Meredith, Liam Morland, Cathy Newell Kelly (guest), Kris Olafson, Rose Padacz, Elizabeth Rogers, Susan Shifflett, Andrew Smith, Jeff Voskamp (guest), Heather Wey, Virginia Young

Regrets:

Cynthia Breen, Andrew McAlorum, Andrea Sweet, Megan Saunders

Absent:

Dave Annable, Tanya Ballan Bedrossian, Nigel Henriques, Paul Miskovsky

1. Chair’s Remarks (Terry Stewart)

  • Welcome to guest Cathy Newell Kelly
  • Welcome to Darren Bondy, new Secretary taking over from Liz
  • Many thanks to Liz Doede who took over the Secretary position from Sharon Dahmer in July 2012. Liz has done a great job.
  • Welcome back to Chris Gray, subbing temporarily for Andrew McAlorum
  • Congratulations to Alison Gelata on the arrival of Rowan Kate Gelata.  November 17. Mother and daughter are doing well.
  • Terry will be presenting to the IST Professional Development Friday morning seminar on Web Advisory and its activities.  Friday, Nov 22, 9:00.  MC2009.

2. Approval of Minutes.

  • The minutes of  October 16, 2013 were approved.

​3. Busines​s Arising

  • None.

4. Web Accessibility and Personal Sites (Karen Jack)

Karen Jack talked, in general terms, about the AODA legislation as it pertains to personal web pages hosted on the university’s website and also gave some links as examples.

A statement on this matter was being written by the Secretary of the University.  Subsequent to the meeting Jack provided the statement and indicated that she understood it would appear on the university’s web resources website.

Until such time as the university is otherwise notified, personal websites and those relating to other groups (like student clubs) for which the university does not control content and are hosted on the university’s web space are likely not required to comply with the information and communication standards required by Ontario Regulation 191/11 made under AODA.  Notwithstanding that, university employees and other groups using the university’s web space are strongly encouraged to make their sites accessible per the regulation; resources for making sites accessible are found here: https://uwaterloo.ca/web-resources/resources/accessibility

To assist in determining whether a site or page needs to be made accessible, consider whether:

  • The university has the ability to control the content on the page/site?  If yes, it must be made accessible.

  • The page/site conveys information that reasonably would be considered university business? (i.e., is it a page about a person’s hobbies? [= personal, and not in the university’s control], or is it a page more like a professional “profile” page which describes a person’s area of expertise and how to contact him/her at the university? [= professional, and in the university’s control])  If no, the page/site does not need to be made accessible; if yes, it must be made accessible.

  • The page/site provides information about a university entity (department, faculty, institute, school, etc.)?  If yes, it must be made accessible.

Questions & comments

Q: Are there any rules about using the crest on websites?

A: Communications and Public Affairs website has the rules listed, pertaining the logo.

Q: If a faculty member wants to make a page accessible, what do they do?

A: Refer to the WCMS website for SEW courses and tips on accessibility.

5. Open Learning (Cathy Newell Kelly)

Cathy Newell Kelly presented on Open Learning. The topics included:

  • Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

  • Open courseware

  • Online learning available

  • How does the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL) provide support?

  • Current projects

Newell-Kelly's PowerPoint Presentation

Questions & comments

Q: What is the Return on Investment (ROI) of Open Courseware?

A: MOOC’s require a big investment because they require instructor resources to maintain and monitor the courses. The only cost in creating open courseware is in creating the content. There is relatively low cost for open courseware. It does not bring in any funds, but it improves brand and marketing, by raising awareness of the public on programs available.

Q: How would you find courses that are offered at other universities with open courseware?

A: There is no single repository for all of the open courses offered provincially at this time. 

​6. Accessible Web Resource Committee (Rose Padacz) 

A committee has been created to discuss web accessibility and how it pertains to the University. The intention is to be able to answer questions that frequently arise regarding accessibility, and to provide some guidance to faculty and staff. It provides a place to channel all questions about accessibility and they hope to put together some guidelines.

Comments & questions

Q:  Is there a disclaimer we can use to put on campus wide webpages to indicate that we are currently working on our sites to comply with accessibility?

A: Currently no universal statement, but it is something we will work on. A universal disclaimer that could be used on all University of Waterloo sites (that are currently not accessible) to demonstrate our good faith and that we are working towards making them accessible. 

7. Digital Initiatives Report (Kris Olafson)

  • Changes to Theme for Senate-approved research sites have been approved
  • Library use of "sub-sites". Web Steering has approved the use of sub-sites for the Library and is willing to look at similar requests on an “as-needed” basis. 

​8. Waterloo CMS Report (Heather Wey and Kris Olafson)

Training Update (Heather Wey)

WCMS Features and Upgrades (Kris Olafson) 

  • Research site changes:  The request for call to action links like on the CIW site was approved.  We will work on implementing the links in an easy-to-use way with colours that take the theme colours into account.  When the work is completed, this option will be available to all sites. In addition, it was agreed that all sites should be able to have full width banners if desired.  Users will be able to pick which style of banner they prefer in their site settings.  The last request to put logos in the white header instead of Gotham text was approved, but only for “official senate approved research centers” and within certain height constraints (yet to be determined, likely a limit based on the height of the uWaterloo shield).

  • Groups are interested in having “call to action” buttons. The team will work on generalizing them to match the site theme.

  • Links to popular pages within the header on the website are being reviewed before launch; it may not include “admissions” due to the appropriateness of the landing page being questioned.

  • Actively moving all of our tickets to the new management site.

  • Working on web services for events and news.

  • Lot of updates to events including calendars

    • ​New metadata coming to events with this update.

  • ​Fix for Safari display issues.

  • Is “important dates” an event? Need to give access to certain people (not everyone)

  • Working on improving file deletions.

    • ​Olafson will discuss options for file deletions at next meeting.

  • ​New project management site can have new filtered feeds 

8. Other Business

L. Morland to look into the accessibility of our e-commerce transactions and related programs/sites like Beanstream. Is it considered part of our site? Is it our responsibility? 

9. Next M​eeting 

  • 3:00-4:30p.m., December 18, 2013. MC 2018 a/b

10. Meeting Adjourned at 4:30 p.m.