Final update 5:
We’re thrilled to announce that after an intense day of work, ALA Connect is back online! We’ve done thorough testing and haven’t found any bugs or problems, and no data was lost. This also means the Conference Scheduler is live, and schedules that were already created should still be there.
If there’s any upside to this whole thing, it’s that the site is running on a more powerful server, so you should notice improved response times. Although we don’t anticipate any issues, please contact us immediately if you encounter any problems.
Thanks for your patience and support while we worked through this trying time.
Well, technically the server is going up and down, but we’re considering it down because access is not stable. We attempted a RAM upgrade last night to ensure the site’s stability leading up to and during Midwinter, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.
The hosting company is working to restore access, which includes a firmware update for the NIC card among other things. We hope to have access restored soon. At this point, we recommend that you not to try to use the site until we post an “all clear” message here and on Twitter so that you don’t lose any work.
Thanks for your patience.
We’re very sorry to report that the chat module is causing problems on the Connect server again, to the point where it can crash the site. We’ve therefore decided to disable the creation of new chat rooms in order to maintain the stability of Connect itself. Beginning Tuesday, December 7, 2010, groups will no longer be able to create new chats, although all past chats and archives will remain available.
Read more and ask questions in the Help community on ALA Connect.
Tags: chat
I put together a brief overview of usage patterns for Connect at the 18-month mark. Ready to start walking, but still so much growth in its future. You can download the PDF of the report (362KB), but the full set of snapshots of statistics is available on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alastaff/sets/72157625093565137/.
The takeaway: usage continues to grow, with an anticipated doubling of traffic around Midwinter and Annual. Not surprising for a professionally-oriented site. More info in the report.
We soft launched the upgraded chat module in Connect a few weeks ago and wanted to see how it did after testing proved it was more stable than previous updates. I’m happy to report “so far, so good.”
So this is the official announcement that we think we’ve improved chat overall in Connect. Here are some reasons why:
Please let us know if you have questions about any of this or if you encounter any problems with the chat feature.
Tags: chat upgrade
Rob is contacting units to schedule the migrations; submit a Track-It ticket if you want to discuss timing before he contacts you
many of our wikis seem to be informational and aren’t updated much
a lot of them are getting spammed to the point where they’re unusable
Rob has developed a script that checks for any admin activity in the last 90 days
if the admin hasn’t logged in during the last 90 days, it will send an email to the address listed for that account to let them know the site is being converted to “read-only” status
this means updates/edits will no longer be possible, but Rob can always reverse the read-only status so that it can be edited if changes need to be made at some point
this will prevent spammers from creating new accounts and vandalizing the wikithe new blogs/wiki server is working amazingly well and is nice and clean
We also upgraded chat a few weeks ago; there have been no reports of users getting kicked out of chat rooms since the upgrade was installed.
There are some new features that came with the upgrade (see next blot post for more details), but you can now:
– Pop the chat out into its own window
– Pause autoscrolling
– Make the box you type in bigger by pulling down the bottom border of the box
Right now, we’re working on offering the ability to do “drafts” so that you can start writing something and stave it but not publish it yet.
This fall, we’ll be working on the new conference scheduler (used to be known as the “event planner”) and giving each group its own file repository. We’re also going to redesign the Connect home page and group home pages so that they’re easier to read and use.
These three major projects will take up the bulk of our time, so there won’t be a lot of smaller enhancements until either December or January.
the Library has become less reactive to questions and more proactive to get the information out there and reorganized ahead of time
they’ve have been working on the Guidelines and Standards section, the Library FAQ Sheets, an A-Z of topics
they’re also doing interventions in major areas because then the number of questions about that subject drop when work is done to address problems
one of the problems has been the Policy Manual, which was originally posted as a straight translation of the print version to the web (150 print pages as one long scrolling page)
– the Library has redone it, with Rebecca taking the lead to work with Lois Ann and the Governance Office
Karen showed work that was done to make it a true web document, such as making the data that needed to be in tables accessible, adding anchors for navigation, and adding a section for recent changes
they’re still building the left navigation
ITTS fixed everyone’s links to the Policy Manual and deployed the pages so the links wouldn’t break
please be sure to link to the new version, rather than reproducing it (or sections of it) elsewhere on the site
the Library has begun working with OIF to restructure some of its pages and is starting another project with the Governance Office
As we head into the fall, when we’ll be working on some major projects (file repositories, the conference scheduler), we took some time in August to make some minor improvements across the site. You’ve been requesting some of these for several months, so we hope they enhance your Connect experience.
Whew! We’re constantly trying to improve the site, and we have a couple more things in this month’s pipeline, but let us know how these enhancements work (or don’t work) for you. And as always, additional suggestions are always welcome.
Will email a survey link to the folks who attended to get detailed feedback
Asked for feedback about the first vendor meeting on Monday
Next vendor is scheduled to come in on Thursday
Hope to make an announcement sometime after August 1 so the lawyers can start on the contract
Recent enhancements to Connect include:
– Rotating banners on the home page to help highlight all of the new features and changes
– You can now compare versions of online docs to see what actually changed (the way you can on wikis or on new press releases). Just go to the “revisions” tab on an online doc, select which two versions you want to compare, and click on the “show diff” button.
– In the email notifications for updates to online docs, we’ve added a line that links you directly to the revisions page so that you can immediately go see what’s changed.
– Right now we’re working on implementing HTML formatting in email notifications in order to make them more legible. We know it’s difficult to read blocks of unformatted text, so we hope to make this easier.
– In the last two weeks, three new versions of the chat module have been released, so we’re currently testing the latest one to see if we can go live with it to try to resolve the problems that some users encounter when using the chat function. We’ll report back on the testing soon but even if it’s successful, we believe the links to past chats will still be broken, so we’ll again have to give folks time to archive their chats before implementing the new version on the live site. More news on the blog as we have it.
MemberFuse pilot restarting
This is the project to test some software called MemberFuse to see if it’s a potential replacement for Drupal to run Connect. Although we got some good feedback from a handful of folks in late May and early June, things kind of died off as we got into Annual. We’re going to add a few more testers and restart the pilot so that it runs July 26 – August 15. If any staff person wants totry it out and give us feedback, please contact Jenny to get access.
Inventory project
inventorying each unit’s pages and deleting unneccesary ones
took three weekends to finish the inventory of each unit’s content
only removed content that had already been removed from the website by someone in the unit, so no live pages should have disappeared
we removed 20,000 pages, so we hope that will help with deploys since we’re not trying to publish thousands of removed pages anymore
HTML Tidy project
we had a version customized for us to remove font tags, inline formatting, and non-XHTML compliant code, as well as alert us to other accessibility issues
we have to take files from the website, run them through HTML Tidy, and then return them to Collage
we’ll be starting to run the program on unit’s files but will coordinate with each unit because we have to lock out authors during the run so that the files don’t change
units will receive a before and after “snapshot” of the changes to show the differences
it took Rebecca less than a minute to make most of the changes suggested for the Library’s pages
question: what are the options for loading new CSS files in Collage for migrating tables?
answer: we can figure out a way to add the necessary code, hopefully as a universal solution for everyone
Louise showed the newish Online Learning section of the website since it’s gone live since our last meeting
we’ll be adding Round Tables as contributors
trying to get all units to use the templates for uniform display of information
Louise also showed the revamped Conferences & Events section of the website
work was done to condense the “calendar of events” area down to three: affiliates & chapters, American Libraries Magazine’s, and a new list of celebration/promotional weeks/days
happening on Wednesday, July 21, around 5:30pm
the current content will be copied onto a brand new server using the latest version of Moodle
classes.ala.org may be down for up to 4 hours while the DNS propagates
there don’t seem to be any interface changes, although there are a lot of new report options available for instructors; most folks shouldn’t notice any change at all.
we’ve posted an announcement on the Moodle site for the last week and did a post on the ITTS blog last week
ITTS has worked with the Library to add “expertise” and staff photos to the staff directory in the KM system
Sheila is working on documentation for how staff can add information to both; it should be ready in mid-August
all you need is a square image of yourself to add your picture
Karen showed how to use the expertise directory to find who in the building is a notary public, just as an examlpe
we’re migrating from a single, private server on Dreamhost to two new private servers on Dreamhost
why now?
because we have some intrusions on our current server that are serving up pharmaceutical ads
this happened because we have a lot of blog and wiki software on Dreamhost that is very out-of-date
going forward, we’ll be upgrading all blog and wiki software at once as soon as new versions become available
the main issue will be that if you have a custom theme for your site (in other words, you’ve changed a default one in some way), you may have to re-install it after the upgrade
unfortunately, whole domains will have to be moved at the same time (eg, pio.ala.org, alcts.ala.org, etc.), so Rob will work with each unit to coordinate timing
for content you don’t need anymore, ITTS can archive it on a DVD, although that will just be the data and not necessarily a way to easily view it; we’re investigating options for this.
if you want to make a site an online archive, we can migrate it and make it uneditable so that it can’t be spammed
we’ll also be increasing security, like requiring secure FTP, changing everyone’s passwords, and encouraging strong password use
on the plus side, the new servers will run much faster and perform better
The best description possible in the Track-It ticket helps us resolve your issues faster.
We’ve released another new feature on ALA Connect, one that will look familiar to wiki users. One of the problems with using the online docs (as opposed to uploading a file) is that you couldn’t see what had actually changed from version to version. Now, you can.
Here’s how it works.
This should apply retroactively to all online docs, as well as all new ones. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to keep track of what’s changed from draft to final in your online documents. Let us know how it goes.
Tags: new feature, online docs
Consider this confirmation that the rosters for committees in Connect did flip last night, so they look different today than they did yesterday. Anyone whose term ended on June 30, 2010, no longer has access to the posting tools or private content in that group in Connect. Anyone whose term starts today (July 1, 2010), does. This holds true for staff liaisons, as well as ALA members.
If you’re seeing problems with your rosters, it’s likely a problem in iMIS since all term dates come directly from there. We suggest checking rosters and dates there first. If you fix a problem in iMIS, it will get updated in Connect during the overnight sync. Alternatively, you can have the person in question log out of Connect and log back in to immediately trigger a new change.
If you go through all of this and are still experiencing problems with your Connect roster, please let us know.
Just a quick note to reassure everyone that rosters in ALA Connect will flip old committee members off and new ones on the night of June 30, 2010. This is important to think about for several reasons.
Incoming chairs should read the [newly updated] Member Chair FAQ in the Help community on Connect. If you’re a staff liaison, please be sure to notify your groups about the roster change and point your new chairs to the FAQ.
Have further questions? Let us know!
Tags: annual, chairs, committees, rosters