04 Jun 12 ITTS News Meeting – May 22, 2012

ALA Connect (Jenny)

The Annual Scheduler went live last month and we’re now working on the mobile Scheduler app for early June
– Don’t forget you can add descriptions and speaker info to Annual sessions all the way through the conference itself
Beta testing for the new Connect interface went so well that we postponed implementation until after July 4th to try to incorporate as many user suggestions as possible; Jenny will send out an all-staff announcement when we have a specific date for the launch, along with dates for more staff demo sessions and eventually online webinars for members.
The upcoming timeline for Connect work includes some major behind-the-scenes projects:

• July – Launch the Connect redesign and move Connect to ALA servers
• August – Migrate Connect from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7
• September – Work on merging the Midwinter conference site with the Midwinter Scheduler for an October 1 launch; work on merging Connect profile data into iMIS (could possibly be used with Informz in the future); work on phase 2 of the Connect redesign
• October – Launch Shibboleth single sign-on with ala.org, combine website and Connect profiles into one, and implement ala.org’s Solr search engine installation for federated search of both sites
• November – Launch Midwinter Scheduler within the Midwinter website
• December – Launch the Midwinter mobile Scheduler app with session evaluation feature
• January – Open merged Annual website with integrated Scheduler

We’ll resume feature development in calendar year 2013.

 

Drupal CMS Migration Update (Sherri)

• Homepage Go Live Schedule: We expect to take the homepage live in Drupal at the end of the day on May 29^th. This will complete the migration to Drupal.
• Drupal Enhancements

1. Modules: Your microsite should have feature slides, navpods, lightbox, and also the book module (really great for displaying policy and other types of manuals) available. Let Louise know if you need modules enabled or if you require training.
2. Feature Slide (AKA Homepage Highlights) templates now include left and right side image options. Templates for feature slides are available at http://itts.training.ala.org/highlights and templates for pods are at http://itts.training.ala.org/navpods. Please use the original navpod size until we inform you that the other options are available.

• Feedback Forms
  Feedback Forms have been installed on each microsite. Forms are set to submit email responses to ITTS, and the owning unit. On shared portions of the site, messages are sent to the web group list for that area. It is expected that the appropriate personnel will take the lead in responding to these messages.

Ecommerce Project (Sherri)

• The requirements document has been shared with unit managers, with a request for review and further comments from staff.
• We expect to release the draft version of the RFP for feedback from the Website Advisory Committee and staff by mid-June.

Virtual Meeting Software Update (Sherri)

After reviewing the results of the Online Learning survey, ITTS has determined that we should have three shared rooms seating 100. Because of Adobe Connect’s named license requirement, we need to determine which ALA units will be assigned to each room. Please contact us with possible partnerships for each shared space.

• We can manually move iLinc recordings and players, but they will not play in Connect rooms. We will have to relocate them elsewhere to keep them available.
• We believe we can also manually move Connect recordings to Connect rooms, but have not tested that functionality yet. We will know for sure whether that’s possible by the end of this week.
• Units with recordings in either platform are requested to begin making lists of which of their recordings will need to be transferred.

Discussions continue, and we hope to have a decision soon.