28 Oct 08 ITTS Update Meeting – October 28, 2008
1. Website Redesign/IA Rollout (Sherri and Karen)
the website is a work in progress
we’ve been focusing on stability issues with the ActiveMatter server (forms, ecommerce transactions, etc.)
– updated the Access databases to Microsoft SQL databases, restricted access to a small number of IP addresses to help address this issue
– this also let us restrict search engines from indexing old content
– got rid of tagged pages from the old ActiveMatter server
we’re in the process of upgrading to a new server with more disk space and a faster processor
– hope to have that done in the next week
working with Duo on tagged content displays, division news feeds, and RSS feeds on the home page
a few weeks ago, a few of us met with Michael Stephens, the current chair of the Web Advisory Committee and came up with two objectives for the site
– for current information (this requires a systematically consistent approach for tagging, etc.)
– a marketing tool
the Web Editorial Board will try to lead several initiatives in these areas
– encouraging staff with web responsibilities to add keeping the site current as a goal on their evaluations
– need some quality control to achieve this; will allow us to set goals (“get your shadow assets down 10% from where it is today,” etc.)
– revamping the Web Editorial Board into two separate teams
– “tag team” – will review the site structure, will consult with offices on restructuring content; create standards; review and finalize the web style guide; examining the website to determine to what extent it should be used as an archive; examining advantages and disadvantages of decentralized site management; tagging items for listing pages; checking for ALT text on images; proper page headlines; use of transcripts for audio and video files; procedural documentation; etc.
– “communications impact team” – encourage use of images, pods, etc.; consulting with units to develop individual areas of the site for maximum effect; optimizing pages; accessibility issues
the Web Editorial Board is going to expand and add more members
2. ALA Connect (Jenny)
just got back from vacation yesterday so hasn’t had a chance to check in with the development site to see recent changes made to the functionality
Urban Insight has successfully imported the active committees from iMIS and categorized them into “communities” (currently divisions), “committees,” and “events”
hope to have a demo to show on November 18, as we are hoping to alpha test in November and beta test in December for a roll out before Midwinter in January
3. Wiki Migration (Matt)
all wikis currently hosted at wikis.ala.org will be moved to Dreamhost domains because the wikis.ala.org server was never really intended to house these applications
Matt will be able to migrate 6-8 wikis each week without requiring the wiki owners to do anything
he’ll send out a message about this today or tomorrow
he’ll change nothing about your wiki, other than the beginnings of the URL (“wikis.ala.org/acrlwiki” will become something like “acrl.ala.org/acrlwiki” in the domain unless you specify otherwise) – basically, “wikis” just becomes your acronym
migrating the wikis to Dreamhost has some other benefits, including the addition of an audio captcha for spam control
all of this will happen over the next 4-5 weeks, and Matt will notify you when this is happening for your site
while your wiki is migrated, it will be down for 1-2 hours
everything in your current wiki will get migrated, including content, users, blocked users, images, files, etc.
4. Virtual Private Hosting (Matt)
if you already have blogs, wikis, or Moodle on Dreamhost, you may have noticed that it slows down from time-to-time
but earlier this month, we upgraded to “virtual private hosting” service, which means we’re now paying a monthly fee for reserved processor time and more importantly, memory
this means we’ll no longer be throttled back when other users overload the server, so speed and response time should improve dramatically and should be more consistent
we also have no maximum ceiling now, as our usage is burstable
if you do encounter problems, let Matt know right away because he has more options for troubleshooting now (such as rebooting our virtual server)
Moodle chat now works (insofar as Moodle chat works)
Matt also noted that when you use FTP on Dreamhost, make sure you’re using your domain name (eg, rusa.ala.org), rather than a server name
5. Meeting room resources in Outlook (Sherri)
coming soon – we’ll be implementing the ability to book meeting rooms in Outlook
just have to get this set up and will then send out a tech tip about it
6. Keeping up with developments
Blog w/RSS Feed – http://itts.ala.org/update/
Wikis – http://wikis.ala.org/learningcollage; http://wikis.ala.org/webplanning
