Web Advisory Committee Minutes - July 19, 2017

3:00p.m., July 19, 2017. NH 3118

Attendance

Present:

Donald Duff-McCracken (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Herbert Balagtas, Beth Cotter, Michelle Douglas-Mills, Laurel Forbes, Tasha Glover, Tom Graham, Troy Grandy, Marlon Griffith, Alison Hitchens, Melissa Holst, Danielle Jeanneault, Andrea Jennings, Joe Kwan, Martin LeBlanc, Andrew McAlorum, Isaac Morland, Liam Morland, Kevin Paxman, Trevor Ridgway, Elizabeth Rogers, Melanie Scott, Susan Shifflett, Lori Suess, Michael Tjendra, Mirko Vucicevich, Chao Yang, Joyce Barlow (guest), Shawn Winnington-Ball (guest)

Regrets:

Anna Beard, Janice Cooke, Sarah Forgrave, Chris Francis, Stephenie Koerne, Amy Meredith, Andrew Smith, Kayla Snyder, Claire Taylor, Mirko Vucicevich Heather Wey

Absent:

Marta Bailey, Jim Johnston, Carlos Saavedra, Andrea Sweet

Approval of the minutes of May meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted as distributed.

Business Arising

CASL clarification from last meeting:

  • The aspect of the legislation that would allow Private Right of Action (consumers being able to bring civil litigation against a company) has been postponed indefinitely, but litigation could still happen. All other changes came into effect on July 1, 2017.

Engineering Custom Single Page site (Alison Gelata)

Ali Gelata presented on the custom single page site that has been created in Engineering with the help of the WCMS. Topics included:

  • Background
  • Analysis
  • Challenges & opportunities
  • Solution: Custom WCMS Single Page
  • Next steps: Project plan
  • Dev requirements
  • Post-mortem

View the full presentation on the Engineering single page site

AODA compliance project (Joyce Barlow, Shawn Winnington-Ball)

Joyce Barlow, AODA specialist, and Shawn Winnington-Ball, Project Manager in IST, presented on the AODA compliance project. Topics included:

  • What is AODA?
  • Information and Communication standard
  • WCAG 2.0 Level A
  • UWaterloo websites and web content
  • Initial approach
  • Scope
  • Deliverables

View the full presentation on the AODA compliance project

Comments & discussion

  • What are the main differences between A and AA?
    • AA more stringent.
    • Ideally, when making changes to become more compliant to level A, we will look for opportunities to become compliant at the higher level.
  • The requirements within the AODA are also in line with best practices for web content.
  • The legislation is enforced by audits and complaints; as long as we fix problems as they are pointed out, it should not be an issue.
  • Liam Morland pointed out that migrating your site to the WCMS is a good step to conforming with WCAG 2.0 Level AA

Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) updates

Technical update (Kevin Paxman)

Since last meeting:

  • WCMS file storage was migrated on July 7.

Other news:

  • We are intending to release a revised WCMS 2.5.0 shortly after the production database upgrades complete; will send communication when this is confirmed.
    • The “profiles” demo site for WAC members is running the original 2.5.0 release candidate and will be updated before the communication goes out, so WAC members can preview the new release
    • Additional features will include: support for YouTube carousels (playlists); fix for multiple image galleries on one page; support for all top level domains (TLDs) in link fields; Hootsuite Campaign embeds; Slack notifications for webform submissions; and the updated theming for publication sites.
  • Focus points in our current sprint include single page improvements, non-English Responsive, and Open Scholar – but primary focus for this and future sprints is Drupal 8.

Training and support (Andrea Jennings)

Migrations and training – by the numbers

Since June 20, 2017:

  • 724 sites live
    • 500 websites in responsive design
      • 502 total responsive sites live in WCMS
  • 53 in progress on pilots (53 are responsive)
  • WCMS training courses: 3,675 attendees

What’s happening with the WCMS?

  • WCMS migration to responsive cut-off date – August 31, 2017 – One month to go!
  • We can flip your live site to responsive!
    • Rather than copying it back to pilots and enabling the theme, we can enable it on your live site. Please ensure no site maintainers are working on the site at that time as edits would be lost.

New to Web Resources

All SEW courses offered throughout July and August are listed!

Drop-in lab

Drop-in lab will be closed Tuesdays in August and on August 31.

If you require special arrangements outside of the regular drop-in hours please contact Andrea, ajenning@uwaterloo.ca. Regularly scheduled WCMS Drop-in lab hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays - 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm in MC 2060.

Job opportunity!

We’ll be hiring for a contract WCMS Client Support Specialist position, ideally to begin this summer. Know someone who would be a good fit? Let us know! Email Andrea, ajenning@uwateroo.ca.

Database upgrade update (Kevin Paxman)

  • Due to continued issues with the legacy database server, upgrade schedule was accelerated from what was discussed at the last WAC meeting, and we continue to work on an aggressive schedule.
  • Pilot sites initially migrated June 22 to “group A” infrastructure for initial testing and to reduce load on the legacy server.
  • Production “group A” was originally scheduled for June 26, moved to June 28. University home page moved at this time as well
  • Pilot sites migrated to its own final infrastructure July 13
  • Planning to move remaining production sites soon, aiming to start tomorrow night (June 20) – will send communication when this is confirmed
  • As with “group A”, we are going to be recommending that you disable forms on your sites on the night when it is being updated, as we will be copying databases and upgrading before switching, in order to limit downtime to a fraction of a second.
  • We expect to be able to move ~100 sites per night, meaning this will proceed for at least a week. Full “distribution” details will be included with the communication.

UWaterloo Scholar site names

Some requests have been made to use real names for UWaterloo Scholar sites.

  • Seeking feedback from this committee about whether this is possible or appropriate.
  • Main reason for not allowing this initially was because of multiple people with the same names that may want a UWaterloo Scholar site.
  • Could allow it based on their friendly email address?
    • Would changing their friendly email cause issues later on?

Grade revision system demonstration (Isaac Morland)

Isaac Morland provided a demonstration on a grade revision system that he developed in Computer Science.

Other business

None.

Meeting adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:33 p.m.