Web Advisory Committee meeting (September 18, 2013)

September 18, 2013–  MC 2018 – 3:00 p.m. 

Present:

Daniel Allen, Marta Bailey, Cynthia Breen, Janice Cooke, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Donald Duff-McCracken,  Chris Francis, Alison Gelata, Chris Gray, Marlon Griffith, Andrew McAlorum (Guest),  Jim Johnston, Collin McIntyre, Amy Meredith, Liam Morland, Kris Olafson, Scott O’Neill, Rose Padacz, Elizabeth Rogers (Guest), Megan Saunders, Andrew Smith, Terry Stewart (Chair), Andrea Sweet, Jeff Voskamp, Jonathan Woodcock, Virginia Young, Heather Wey

Regrets:

Dave Annable, Guillermo Fuentes, Karen Jack

Absent:

Amy Aldous, Sarah Forgrave, Nigel Henriques,  Tammy Marcinko, Paul Miskovsky, Susan Shifflett,  

1. Chair’s Remarks (Terry Stewart)

  • Welcome to Elizabeth Rogers, who will be presenting on the accessibility audit in CPA.

  • Welcome to Andrew McAlorum, Library, who will address Agenda item 5 on responsive design.  Andrew worked on several projects at UofT in this area.

  • Thanks to Janice for Chairing last meeting.

  • Membership changes:

    • ​Andrew Smith will be replacing Lisa Brackenridge “for a couple of months” as Undergrad Recruitment rep.

    • Heather Wey will be officially representing IST/WCMS team replacing Pat Lafranier.  Pat has be new responsibilities a result of the IST Organize for Success initiative.

  • Dave Wallace will speak at next meeting regarding Organize for Success.

2. Approval of Minutes.

​3. Busines​s Arising

  • None.

4. Stack Overflow clone for campus (Kris Olafson, Jim Johnston)

  • A Stack Overflow type system  would be helpful for campus.  It could be especially useful for voting on priorities in the WCMS to get an idea of what people want.

  • Questions and Comments:

    Q.  Is there any other interest in any other sites for the stack overflow?  Do we need to form a group?

    A.  No other interest at this time beyond Math and the WCMS team.  Math is looking for feedback from students and the WCMS team wants feedback from staff on development priorities.

    Q.  Would this be built in the Student Portal?

    A.  No, it is not related to the Student Portal other than for setting priorities for portal development.

    Q.  What about the new RT system? 

    A. Unless an item is added for each answer it won’t work. 

​5. COPE and responsive design initiatives (Andrew McAllorum/Kris Olafson)

  • Andrew McAlorum is about 1 month into his new position as the Head of Digital Initiatives, in the Library. 

  • He is getting ready for the Library migration the the WCMS.

  • Data show people accessing website from their phones, laptops, P.C.'s etc.

  • U of T did a lot of research on the development of a responsive website.

  • WAC would like to hear more about what is possible.

  • Andrew has agreed to report to WAC as they move along and let them know of any lessons learned and things we need from across campus.

  • Questions and Comments:

    C.  A theme adapts the WCMS formatting’s to fit the site.

    C.  Collin McIntyre would like to see more responsive design and has volunteered to help out.

    C.  IST had a group working on mobile accessibility but the portal became the primary focus and losing staff meant narrowing the scope.  It would be great if we could do this with Faculty/Unit/Support sites.  This is not a small task.  It needs to be accessible.  We need to make sure we don’t box ourselves in, need to think this through first.  No content viewable on a desktop should disappear on a mobile site.  The payoff would be huge if we could accomplish this as we could have hundreds of responsive sites, not just the main campus site like most institutions.

    C. CPA is supportive of mobile accessibility; they understand that the students really want this.

    C.  The Library has a content strategist starting soon who can help with this.

    C.  CPA has a usability person coming as well; the two should work together.

    C.  At previous design working group meetings we discussed the potential purchase a "middleware" data solution for the Portal and other project.  Purchasing such a system is not likely to be happening anytime soon.

    Q.  Didn’t the Student Success Office have students working on a similar project?

    A.  It never happened - it was supposed to be part of Velocity.

    Q.  Is it possible for the work of the Library to be transferable across campus?

    A.  The library is working off the same WCMS install profile, so their work could benefit the rest of campus if applicable.

6. Digital Initiatives (Jonathan Woodcock/Elizabeth Rogers)

  • D.I. has been investigating software solutions for accessibility
    • Outside vendors (Site Improve and others) and a Drupal Module have been looked at.
    • Outside vendors are very expensive.
    • Most campus CMS sites came up pretty clean when checked for accessibility.
    • Most vendors don't address PDF's which is one of our biggest issues.
    • Web Steering has asked for more research; Jonathan will report back to Web Steering and WAC next month.
  • D.I. is very busy getting the redesigned header out.
  • Publications are next.
  • Access control investigation continues.
    • Hope to have solution soon.
    • Access control hierarchy to come.
    • Access on the back-end still to come. 
  • ​Questions and Comments:

Q. Where do we stand with hiring a accessibility coordinator?

A.  Some members of Web Steering will be meeting with Provost and AP Students on this topic this month. 

Q.  I have heard that Creative Services says that if we post non-accessible content, that we are personally responsible.

A.  This is not correct.

C.  There needs to be an accessibility plan in place; having a plan in place is our best response to and audits or legal issues that come up; What is really wanted by the government is a plan, and a Web Accessibility policy.  If we indicate the WCMS and a plan, we believe that the government will work with us rather than fight us. They are aware of what the University is trying to do.

C.  After 2014, if any archived information is requested, it will need to be made accessible to the user.

C.  PDF’s need to be accessible by a screen reader. Screen readers are seen as the litmus test for accessiblity.    (Rose will report back at next meeting).

  • Visual Identity
    • The Chair reminded everyone of the President's Memo of Sept 3rd on the return of the university shield and other visual identity matters.
    • The group asked when visual identity elements would be changed in the WCMS;  the Chair agreed to invite the AP Communications to the next meeting.
  • Accessibility Audit
    • Elizabeth Rogers conducted an accessibility audit of CPA sites to try to understand the breadth and scope of an Accessibility Audit; what processes/tools are involved and what lessons can be learned for others. 
    • Her PowerPoint presentation on CPA's Accessibility Audit is available.
    • Purpose – To define a process that is practicable.

    • Expertise will affect how tools are used and the amount of time put into using them.

    • For accessibility Wave was cleaner and an easier tool to use.

    • It was found that there were many things that need to be accessed by humans.

    • Different audience’s usability need to be analysed.

    • Used the Juicy Studio reader accessory, takes 3 steps each page.

    • It was found that the only WCMS error that came up was not tagged; this has been fixed by the WCMS.

    • Alt text, linked text were consistent errors.

    • It would be helpful if something could be built into the background.

    • Waterloo Magazine, Daily Bulletin have not yet been assessed.

    • Prestigious event websites such as LINC and Canada Day were audited as they went along.

    • To be able to follow best practices and audit content type in a reasonable amount of time, training needs to be provided ahead of time to content administrators.

    • Questions/Comments

​C.  There are many Faculty websites to cover.  Having the resources available would be great.

C.  Redirect from WCMS is a good place to start an inventory.

C.  The Library has over 12,000 pages, looking to moving it down to 500 pages.

C.  It is important to try and not touch the same thing twice. When you perform a content audit it would be best to fix the error on the spot instead of making a list.

C. It becomes a learning tool to improve skills and help understand accessibility requirements when they are not the primary content maintainer on the site. 

Q.  Is there the capacity in WCMS to track in the WCMS?  This would enable to audit what has been done?

A.  The last update appears.

C.  Government provides AChecker .  The Library has found that AChecker is finding more problems than WAVE.  Sometimes it can go overboard on the findings but it is helpful. Achecker can also be scripted and the results piped to disk;  automated messages to content maintainers are being sent.

C.  It would be helpful to have cues to allow a site manager to see when the site was last checked for accessibility.  Could this be built into the WCMS?

C.  Maybe another role would need to be added, so that the checklist is accessed only by specific people.

7. Waterloo CMS Update (Pat Lafranier/Kevin Paxman)

Have you hired a co-op student to work on your website?  See this list of resources that will help them get up to speed. 

Also, see our new WCMS "how to" documents.

  • Site Managers: time to review permissions!

    It’s the start of a new term - don’t forget to review permissions on your site for past co-op students. 

  • Remove a user’s role(s) on your site when you no longer want them to create/edit content.  By removing their role they are 'blocked' from creating/editing content on your site.
  • If there are roles assigned (form editor) that you cannot remove, you can submit an RT.

  • WCMS Developer Drop in Lab Schedule

The WCMS developers will no longer host their developer drop in labs the last Wednesday of every month.  They will still host sessions in the future to discuss subjects of interest however, and dates will be communicated to this mailing list.  If you wish to discuss Drupal development with the WCMS team, you may contact Kris Olafson (kolafson@uwaterloo.ca) to arrange a meeting.

  • Memory upgrade on database servers; recent issues have been solved.
  • Working on project and service content types, made for IST site but usable by others.W
  • Will be working on site specific search using Google search appliance.
  • MUR doing module development, 3 released and more to come.

8. Other Business

None.

9. Next M​eeting 

  • 3:00-4:30p.m., October 16, 2013. MC 2018 a/b

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