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06 Mar 13 ITTS News Meeting – February 19, 2013

1. Drupal Modules (Rob)

Rob explained how decisions are made about which Drupal modules we can add to the ala.org installation and why

ITTS evaluates each module request, with the first criterion being its development status;
“alpha” modules are never installed because they’re too unstable and there’s no guarantee the developer will fix any problems
modules in “beta” testing are considered, but we’ll still take into consideration other factors, such as whether the developer is actively working on the module, if it’s dependent on other modules being installed first, etc.
“release candidate” status on a module still equals “beta”
even when accepted for testing, modules can still fail when implemented on the development site because the module just doesn’t work properly in our environment or with other installed modules

a list of existing modules in the ala.org installation is available at http://www.ala.org/support/res/modules
we’ll also add a list of rejected modules to the Support site

2. Connect Migration to Drupal 7 (Jenny)

the upgrade is scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm CST on Wednesday, March 6th
Connect will be offline for approximately an hour if all goes well
watch the Connect Twitter account for updates – http://twitter.com/alaconnect

users shouldn’t notice any major changes when the new version is up – the interface will be the same, with only minor changes made to chats (see January 2013 meeting notes)

once we’re in Drupal 7 and the dust has settled, we’ll begin working on better email notifications
watch for an online poll to provide feedback about how you think the notifications should look and what should be in them and where

we’re also planning a larger survey about Connect later this year to get broader feedback about how to improve the site

3. Merging Connect and ala.org Profiles (Jenny)

ITTS continues to work on the plan to merge Connect and ala.org profiles into a single profile that will result in a new, standalone membership directory; all of the data will be unified and will live in iMIS as our central source
we’ll be implementing Apache Solr as the search engine for profiles (members, non-members, and staff), which will allow us to offer faceted searching
this also means that Connect profile interests will be available to units via iMIS for use with Informz

4. Status of the New Hire Form (Louise)

the form is not yet ready but is getting closer to going live
Louise discussed various features and showed the “Changes and Departures” side of the form (building on what was shown at the January 2013 ITTS Update meeting)
when live, the form will be behind a staff login on the Support site
ITTS will seek feedback from Unit Managers before the form goes live
all other related, existing forms will be deactivated when this new one goes live

5. New Event Management System (Sherri)

the group working on selecting a new system has narrowed the choices to two vendors
we hope to sign a contract in March and begin work as soon as possible since the new service has to be ready for testing in August

 

14 Sep 12 ITTS News Meeting – August 21, 2012

Drupal features you may not know about (Louise)

Louise showed how to:

  • Embed a video in a web page; anyone can do it using the icon on the WYSIWYG editor; she recommends keeping the size to 500-700 pixels wide at most (500 for pods)
  • Add an audio file using the “multimedia” section of the page (not an icon in the WYSIWYG editor)
  • Embed external content using an iframe by inserting the HTML into the source code; the example she used was OIF’s Banned Books Week Timeline

Louise also discussed “microsites,” which are subsites that use a different template from the standard ala.org one
any unit can request a microsite, but please allow a minimum of two weeks notice so that ITTS has time to implement it before your deadline for it to be live
for a microsite, you’ll need to provide a banner, color scheme, and links; colors can be different from the ala.org template, but not font size

Virtual Meeting Software (Sherri)

Louise is configuring Adobe Connect
please make sure your staff list is current for your unit in the KM system because Louise is creating “groups” now
because of the way the Adobe Connect licensing works, we need to assign one person in each unit to be the main point of contact for using the software
Adobe is trying to convert our iLinc archives
all ALA staff are Adobe Connect users by default
we recommend you put your webinar materials in your unit’s shared folder so that anyone can get to it

Blogs & wikis (Sherri)

ITTS has found software to maintain our blogs and wikis in-house, so we’ll be migrating from DreamHost sometime in the near future
we’ll give plenty of notice and set up a schedule when we have more information

Rollout of network disk space (Sherri)

ITTS is moving files to a new storage location in order to add more storage space
this should stop the network full messages, but please take a few minutes to clean out any files you no longer need

RFPs (Sherri)

Sherri noted that we have several RFPs running right now

  • Profile Management System that will help us merge Connect and ala.org profiles into one (released in June, work to begin in September)
  • New ecommerce system – will replace ActiveMatter (responses due in September, work to begin in November)
  • New event management system – will replace ActiveEvents and add abstract management plus speaker management (RFP released in August, work to be completed before August 2013)
  • Committee Appointment System – ITTS is talking with Charles Wilt about redoing the committee appointment forms to move them out of ColdFusion; will solicit input from other units after initial discussions (work to be completed by June 2013)

ALA Connect (Jenny)

Jenny will hold additional sessions on the redesign in a few weeks

 

28 Aug 12 ALA Event Management System RFP

The ALA-EventManagementSystemRFP is now available. Released August 28, proposals are due on October 15, 2012.  Please contact Sherri Vanyek, at svanyek at ala.org with any questions.