Wright State University Communications and Marketing

Web Admin - Meeting Notes

November 2002

We had a lovely time back in the 106U conference room, even if we did have to kick out some of those racous C&M people! But, that's OK, since we were playing things low-tech this time around and didn't need to set up any equipment.

But I digress...

Not a whole lot in the way of new and exciting web designs. Mostly we're running into problems getting content to populate our designs with. Unfortunately, the best solution to this sort of thing is just to continue pestering people until you have everything done. Some of the sites we have in some form of development, due to issues like this are...

College of Engineering
Undergraduate Admissions
Campus Recreation
Business Services
Union Activities Board
Bolinga Center
a few different projects for CUPA

Another piece Jeff's worked on is a "Week in Pictures" database. The idea is to provide an easy way to post photos of recent happenings on and around campus. (Again, it's been pretty much fully operational for a while, but we've been waiting on official approvals.) In theory, people from across campus will eventually be able to submit their own photos for use on the web. Thumbnails would appear on WSU's home page, with a link to a larger version.

Associated with that is an "In Good Company" database highlighting the accomplishments of various WSU Alumni. This will be running in conjunction with a newspaper campaign of the same name.

Verne Smith from CaTS asked that we discuss the impending changes to the MicroSoft licensing agreement. While final details are still being worked out, the upshot of the discussion is that the main MS Office suite (MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) will continue to be used on campus, but home licensing will cease. WSU will also likely be dropping campus-wide licenses for FrontPage, Publisher, and the Windows operating system. Any software installed on your work machine by September 2003 will still be legal, but updates beyond that -- with the exception of MS Office -- will be the responsibility of individual users and their departments. This does not have any impact on other software licenses through companies other than MicroSoft. Please contact Verne if you have any questions or concerns.

Also discussed was the new single sign-on feature CaTS has begun implementing. Basically, by filling out the form located off the CaTS home page, you will consolodate all of your passwords for University e-mail, Campus Novell account, Dial-in modem access to the campus network and Internet, Proxy and Firewall authentication, Wireless network access, CaTS university UNIX systems and WebCT into one. You may use either your Campus or Novell passwords to initiate the change, and the change must be submitted by December 9, 2002. After that point, unchanged accounts will be frozen and a trip down to the Help Desk will be required. Contact the Help Desk if you have any questions or concerns.

Now here's the biggie...

I have been charged with developing a new Wright Way policy to cover all official WSU materials published online. The general idea is to mimic the existing policy already set down for printed publications. Unlike printed publications, which occur on a one-time basis, web sites are a constantly-flowing series of updates and additions. While it would be easy enough to write "laws" governing some of overall look and feel of web sites, it would be nearly impossible to enforce if dictated on a flat, university-wide level. If nothing else, we simply don't have the staff to help every department simultaneously.

It seems some lines must be drawn with regard to who would be affected by such a policy and when. But, what lines would be appropriate? Any pages updated after Date X? And site overhauls after Date X? Any pages that receive X number of hits need to change first? There are any number of ways this could be determined and, while many make sense on some level(s), there are no good answers that might be universally valid.

Now I'm not suggesting that every site throughout the University has a rubber-stamp/cookie-cutter look to it, but there are some guidelines that I think should be imposed. A university's web site is often the first contact students have with an institution, and that is the second most-important criteria students use in selecting a college to attend. (The first being an on-campus visit.) So it seems to me that it's in everyone's best interest to make all of the WSU web sites as useful and informative and navigable as possible, and some guidelines that might be drawn up could help in that regard.

So I would like to put it out to this group to provide any thoughts, concerns or suggestions that you might have as Web Administrators with a Wright Way policy like what we're discussing. I'm certainly of the mindset that you should enjoy what you're doing on the web, and I don't want to hamper that by imposing arbitrary standards on everyone. To that end, I'd like to hear anything you have to say on the matter: good, bad, and ugly. What do you think about leveraging your web sites as marketing tools? What types of things do you think should and shouldn't be imposed on all WSU web developers? We had a good discussion in the meeting itself, but please contact me if you have any thoughts you'd like to share.

Eileen Porter. No major updates to Biology since moving to the main server last month.

Jane Blakelock. Revamping Modern Languages, ESL and Classics.

Jeff Hiles. Had started on a re-design of CTL, but has gotten overloaded with other, more pressing issues.

Kurt Cypher. He slept through the meeting.

I'm kidding! Kurt provided a lot of details on the various CaTS initiatives mentioned above.


	Web Admin - Meeting Notes November 2002 We had a lovely time back in the 106U conference room, even if we did have to kick out some of those racous C&M people! But, that's OK, since we were playing things low-tech this time around and didn't need to set up any equipment. But I digress... Not a whole lot in the way of new and exciting web designs. Mostly we're running into problems getting content to populate our designs with. Unfortunately, the best solution to this sort of thing is just to continue pestering people until you have everything done. Some of the sites we have in some form of development, due to issues like this are... College of Engineering Undergraduate Admissions Campus Recreation Business Services Union Activities Board Bolinga Center a few different projects for CUPA Another piece Jeff's worked on is a "Week in Pictures" database. The idea is to provide an easy way to post photos of recent happenings on and around campus. (Again, it's been pretty much fully operational for a while, but we've been waiting on official approvals.) In theory, people from across campus will eventually be able to submit their own photos for use on the web. Thumbnails would appear on WSU's home page, with a link to a larger version. Associated with that is an "In Good Company" database highlighting the accomplishments of various WSU Alumni. This will be running in conjunction with a newspaper campaign of the same name. Verne Smith from CaTS asked that we discuss the impending changes to the MicroSoft licensing agreement. While final details are still being worked out, the upshot of the discussion is that the main MS Office suite (MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) will continue to be used on campus, but home licensing will cease. WSU will also likely be dropping campus-wide licenses for FrontPage, Publisher, and the Windows operating system. Any software installed on your work machine by September 2003 will still be legal, but updates beyond that -- with the exception of MS Office -- will be the responsibility of individual users and their departments. This does not have any impact on other software licenses through companies other than MicroSoft. Please contact Verne if you have any questions or concerns. Also discussed was the new single sign-on feature CaTS has begun implementing. Basically, by filling out the form located off the CaTS home page, you will consolodate all of your passwords for University e-mail, Campus Novell account, Dial-in modem access to the campus network and Internet, Proxy and Firewall authentication, Wireless network access, CaTS university UNIX systems and WebCT into one. You may use either your Campus or Novell passwords to initiate the change, and the change must be submitted by December 9, 2002. After that point, unchanged accounts will be frozen and a trip down to the Help Desk will be required. Contact the Help Desk if you have any questions or concerns. Now here's the biggie... I have been charged with developing a new Wright Way policy to cover all official WSU materials published online. The general idea is to mimic the existing policy already set down for printed publications. Unlike printed publications, which occur on a one-time basis, web sites are a constantly-flowing series of updates and additions. While it would be easy enough to write "laws" governing some of overall look and feel of web sites, it would be nearly impossible to enforce if dictated on a flat, university-wide level. If nothing else, we simply don't have the staff to help every department simultaneously. It seems some lines must be drawn with regard to who would be affected by such a policy and when. But, what lines would be appropriate? Any pages updated after Date X? And site overhauls after Date X? Any pages that receive X number of hits need to change first? There are any number of ways this could be determined and, while many make sense on some level(s), there are no good answers that might be universally valid. Now I'm not suggesting that every site throughout the University has a rubber-stamp/cookie-cutter look to it, but there are some guidelines that I think should be imposed. A university's web site is often the first contact students have with an institution, and that is the second most-important criteria students use in selecting a college to attend. (The first being an on-campus visit.) So it seems to me that it's in everyone's best interest to make all of the WSU web sites as useful and informative and navigable as possible, and some guidelines that might be drawn up could help in that regard. So I would like to put it out to this group to provide any thoughts, concerns or suggestions that you might have as Web Administrators with a Wright Way policy like what we're discussing. I'm certainly of the mindset that you should enjoy what you're doing on the web, and I don't want to hamper that by imposing arbitrary standards on everyone. To that end, I'd like to hear anything you have to say on the matter: good, bad, and ugly. What do you think about leveraging your web sites as marketing tools? What types of things do you think should and shouldn't be imposed on all WSU web developers? We had a good discussion in the meeting itself, but please contact me if you have any thoughts you'd like to share. Eileen Porter. No major updates to Biology since moving to the main server last month. Jane Blakelock. Revamping Modern Languages, ESL and Classics. Jeff Hiles. Had started on a re-design of CTL, but has gotten overloaded with other, more pressing issues. Kurt Cypher. He slept through the meeting. I'm kidding! Kurt provided a lot of details on the various CaTS initiatives mentioned above.
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