18 Jul 07 ITTS Update Meeting – July 16, 2007

1. Enhancements to current services (Sherri)
   * Computer rollout
   – 29 of 99 desktops have been rolled out
   – Contacting rest of staff to schedule installations
   – Hope to finish before first week in August at latest because lease is expiring

   * Outlook/Exchange migration

   – Contracts taking longer than originally planned but almost done
   – Investigating conversion tools
   – Will migrate ITTS first
   – Will go unit by unit after that
   – Hope to roll out to rest of staff in September
   – Louise is working on documentation now

   * Spacemaster implementation
   – Sales/ad software package

   – CHOICE upgraded it to work with iMIS
   – Completing training on Wednesday
   – Should go live at the end of August as long as testing goes as planned

2. Web Issues (Rob)

   * Content switch (hardware)
   – Now have a backup content switch to install so we won’t have a single point of failure anymore
   – Right now the content switch is pointing everything to the ActiveMatter server, with the exception of those units that have gone live being directed to the Collage server

   – About to flip this so that most of the traffic is going to the Collage servers and the exceptions are on the ActiveMatter server

   * Domain name issues
   – Had some problems with any domain name that does not involve ala.org loading slowly, especially lita.org
   – Think we have resolved this, but please let us know if you experience or hear about problems
   – Our ISP wasn’t updating the public name servers, which caused the problems, but it’s been fixed now

   * Collage migration
   – Schedule is picking up again after Annual Conference

   – ASCLA should be going live this week
   – ACRL, YALSA, and a few others are on the verge of going live after a few tweaks
   – Some units have been reviewing content since April, so now it’s time to get moving on this and migrating
   – Round tables are next – they are currently under “internal review” at Duo right now so will begin the process during the next month
   – Rob asked that units use the “conversion log” Louise has created for them on the Learning Collage wiki as the reporting mechanism for problems ( http://wikis.ala.org/learningcollage/ )

   – All of the office have been converted, with the Washington Office being live
   – They are at the point where they should be reviewing the content (and have been since April) and writing their issues to the wiki
   – A couple of divisions are still being worked on (mainly ALSC)
   – If you have a list of issues in email, please put it on the wiki faster, as Duo will definitely get to it if they see it there and we’ll all have accountability
   – Are now doubling up on divisions, offices, round tables, and “other” to get things done

   * Usability and redesign process

   – Got some good feedback about the wireframes
   – 194 people filled out the survey and said we’re headed in the right direction
   – ITTS talked with UserWorks while in DC and they said they would take all of the input/feedback they’ve received and they’ll do a second reiteration that incorporates that feedback
   – Should have another set of wireframes this week
   – As of September 1, assuming everything goes well with the wireframes, we begin work on the redesign (yay!)

   Question: When do we begin working on navigation labels, etc.? When do I start lobbying?
   Rob: Not at that stage yet. The wireframes are a shelf where we say this could go here and that could go there. It’s we would put this in that column, really like a coatrack. It was an opportunity to test the labels we put on things. Have card sorting data from Conference now, too. Probably won’t be talking about feedback and labels until September. We’ll seek input throughout the process.

   Question: Do we know if anyone using a screenreader has gone over the wireframes? You’re using dropdown menus, right?
   Rob: The wireframes don’t lend themselves to Jaws, but the dropdown menus themselves (the code) has been tested by screenreaders and we have a report on that.

   Question: When do the pieces staff gave come into play?
   Rob: Those will be part of the overall discussion.

   * Web Editorial Board activities (Karen)
   – WEB will be bringing together two threads

   – Working with Conference Coordinating Committee talking about how to improve how we handle conference content after the fact (handouts, presentations, etc.), keeping in mind issues of money, rights, etc.
   – WEB is beginning some discussions about how to use “assets” in the new CMS and how to deal with “shadow assets”
   – Starting to work on a “back to school” cleanup day with more training/refresher opportunities to teach staff to use Collage properly to help us more
   – Chunking and modularizing content to be re-used in multiple places is the way to go, and we need to unify on this principle
   – WEB is always searching for new and current spotlights for the home page, although they may not be as significant in the redesign (50 x 50 pixels, by noon, to Karen, each Wednesday)

3. New Capabilities (Matt)
   – Handed out a draft of the deployment procedures for off-site web service deployments, in the current case on a service called Dreamhost
   – This is the process by which units will get their own space
   – greater freedom for units
   – also greater responsibility for managing your own services

   – New blogging software default – WordPress

   – Same wiki software – Mediawiki
   – New bulletin board software – phpBB
   – Matt can install these in your directory anytime, but the configuration, settings, templates, etc. are all then yours to do with as you please
   – Can begin getting units started now
   – Listed basics of what he’ll need to know to get you started
   – unit name

   – contact person and primary admin username
   – requested subdomain name (pickaname.ala.org) where your applications will live; note that this *cannot* already exist
   – departmental approval

   – Once he has these things, he can get you started right away

   Question: I spend half my time trying to find the output of what various units are doing, so will all of this be searchable by anyone? Will there be rules developed for archiving/preservation of these materials? Need to resurrect task force on records and preservation and incorporate it into goals to resolve these issues.
   Matt: Obviously there needs to be a procedure for this. What we don’t want to see happen is that we have “shadow CMSes” popping up on this service. Can put the sites into our Google search appliance so that they are found in our search engine.

   Please address any questions you have about this policy (or service) to Matt
   Overall, though, we are ready to begin deploying

   Question: When we set up these services for members who have requested them and taken the lead, what happens when there is a problem? Suggest two lines for requesting contact info, one for staff and one for a member.
   Matt: The primary account user will be a staff member, and then Matt can create a second admin user to be a member. Staff admin can always add the member admin user.

   Question: Will the wikis come with default functionality we would have expected (like the ability to upload files) turned on automatically?
   Matt: Not really, as we don’t control the defaults on Dreamhost. Will always have a default sandbox wiki you can play with to see the default configurations. We can provide some default templates uploaded to the site, and
   Jenny: We’ll provide some suggestions and samples of code you can literally copy and paste to get you started.

   * Moodle
   – Have installed a test instance, but few staff have looked at it
   ITTS is moving forward and implementing a production version because some units want to move forward
   – The site will live at classes.ala.org
   – Using Moodle will allow for immediate course registrations and will let unit admins add students themselves (yay!)
   – Have until end of November for our current WebCT license so hope to transition all courses before then
   – There are existing scripts to convert material from WebCT into Moodle, although he hasn’t had a chance to test them yet
   RUSA volunteered to test this (yay!)

   Question: Can we transfer files en masse from our hard drives into Moodle?
   Matt: Not sure, but doesn’t think so because everything is database-centered, not flat files. Thinks the conversion scripts handle the flat file to database-backend issue

   * Sympa mailing lists
   – Upgrading Symp from 4.1 to 5.2
   – New feature is that you can restrict someone from posting even though they are a member of the list, even though this feature isn’t used very much in modern list management
   – Rob is still working on revamping the Sympa landing page

4. Association 2.0 (Jenny)
   * Online Communities
   – ITTS is putting together a survey of member and staff needs for virtual workspaces
   – what modules do you need to do your work online?
   – what modules within the existing Online Communities product do you use the most?
   – what is missing from the current Online Communities product?
   – these types of questions

   – Want to get everyone’s feedback so that we can evaluate the current software and then fix it or find new software

   Question: Are units using Communities?
   Donavan Vicha: Yes, RUSA is using them extensively. Most questions are about passwords, accessing documents, etc. He hasn’t spent a whole lot of time hand-holding committee members.

   Question: Is that survey ready now?
   Jenny Levine: Not yet, but soon.
   Sherri Vanyek: We’ll try to get it out by the end of the week.

5. Training (Sherri, filling in for Louise)

   * Ongoing training sessions:
   – Collage
   – Collage Hand Holding Help — scheduled as time allows
   – iMIS Membership for new hires and others who need it
   – Scheduling Active Matter sessions (reluctantly) for Round Table volunteers and anyone else who needs it
   – Scheduling Online Communities Administrator sessions

   * New training available:
   – Shadow Asset Resolution the Easy Way (fix your broken links, missing items, and references to deleted items)

   * Other training:
   – See schedule on KM, if class is not listed, request

   * Ongoing projects

   – Extending the Collage wiki

   – Working on the ALA Staff wiki
   – Working on the planning for the Outlook rollout – contact Louise if you have special needs or input

6. Keeping up with new developments at:
   * Blog w/RSS Feed – http://blogs.ala.org/ittsupdate.php

   * Wikis – http://wikis.ala.org/learningcollage, http://wikis.ala.org/webplanning

7. Next meeting will be on Monday, August 20, 2007, at 2:00 pm